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From Apathy To Apostasy: The Danger Of Dullness In Hearing God’S Word, Daniel D. Mann

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation contends that the issue of apathetic hearing among some of the audience in the book of Hebrews is a pivotal aspect in the threat of apostasy. The central theme of Hebrews is that God has spoken in the last days by his Son (Heb. 1:2). Thus, God speaking (1:1–2, 5, 13; 2:3; 3:10; 4:3, 4, 8; 5:5; 10:15, 30; 12:25; 13:5) and man hearing (2:1, 3; 3:7, 15, 16; 4:2, 7; 5:11; 12:25) emerge as twin pillars of emphasis throughout Hebrews. The author’s overarching emphasis is that God has spoken definitively in His Son and that Word deserves …

Christian Leadership In Times Of Persecution: A Comparative Study Of The Pastoral Response Of Tertullian And Cyprian To The Phenomena Of Oppression And Martyrdom In North Africa, Thomas Michael Ray Knoff

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines Christian leadership during persecution through a comparative study of Tertullian and Cyprian in Roman North Africa in the late second and mid third centuries. Although both figures are central to early Christian theology and ecclesiology, their leadership is often assessed without sustained attention to the pressures created by persecution.

Using a historical and theological approach, the dissertation examines the writings and ministerial actions of Tertullian and Cyprian as responses formed under conditions of hostility. Close engagement with their treatises, letters, and apologetic works shows how persecution influenced their understanding of martyrdom and apostasy and guided their handling …

Sacred Geography And The Restoration Of Divine Presence: The Garden Of Eden, Egypt, The Wilderness, And The Promised Land In The Theology Of The Torah, Gary Ryan Perry

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation argues that the Torah presents redemption through a progressive spatial framework in which sacred geography reveals the restoration of God’s dwelling among His people. The narrative movement from the Garden of Eden to Egypt, the Wilderness, and finally the Promised Land forms a theological arc that structures the Torah’s presentation of covenant, priesthood, and divine presence. The Garden of Eden establishes humanity’s original royal priestly vocation within sacred space. Egypt functions as an anti-garden, where abundance and provision exist apart from a covenant relationship with God. The Wilderness represents a redemptive restart, in which Israel is formed through …

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.

Utilizing A Small Group In Bible Studies To Bring About The Reconciliation Of All The Groups Of An Ethnic Community Church In Brooklyn, New York, Anthony Ukasoanya E Uwakwe

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Many local churches in America today have problems in their ministries. The problems may stem from the untimely action or inaction by the church leaders, including ordained pastors and laity. Other problems are simple misunderstandings, such as a congregant not being reimbursed for funds used for a church event. This thesis research project will present biblical teachings on reconciliation, provide a framework for resolving financial misunderstandings in the church, and foster unity among its groups. It is important to know God’s reasons for being reconciled in the fellowship of the church. The triangular methodology employed uses specific scripture passages that …

Samson As Judah/Israel: Parallelism And Metaphor In Judges 13–16, Roy A. Scorup

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation argues that the Samson narrative in Judges 13–16 functions as a metaphorical parallel to Israel and Judah. By employing rhetorical criticism methodology, this study will trace the parallelism between Samson and the twin nations of Israel and Judah and analyze the unique flourishes and oddities that are replete in the account, which largely serves to advance this metaphor.

The parallels between Samson and his nation are striking, tracing a shared trajectory from divinely appointed origins, chronic rebellion, and ultimate decline. While many scholars have noted a strong parallelism between Samson and the Israelite nations, aside from Greenstein’s “The …

Transnational Beings: Corner Store Entrepreneurship Of Mena Immigrants Of The Third Wave, Gabriel Al-Shaer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines the role of entrepreneurship as an institution of transition for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) migrants in the United States from 1965 to the present. Drawing on oral histories, legal analysis, census data, and scholarship on racialization and migration, it argues that small cash-based businesses—particularly corner stores, gas stations, and bodegas—have functioned as critical sites through which third-wave MENA migrants navigate economic precarity, racial marginalization, and community formation. By situating contemporary entrepreneurial practices in relation to earlier forms of pack peddling among first-wave Syrian-Americans, this study demonstrates continuity in migrant strategies of survival while accounting for …

Music Teachers’ Perceptions And Actual Effects Of Youth Orchestra Participation On Students’ Playing Ability, Erika J. Pierce

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Despite research demonstrating a significant correlation between social and academic development with participation in a youth orchestra, few studies have examined whether participation directly affects students’ note-reading skills, the accuracy of pitch production, and musical expression. This information matters because students often join a youth orchestra to develop these and other playing skills beyond what school programs and private lessons teach. This applied research study examined youth orchestra participation by comparing teachers’ perceptions with demonstrated performance outcomes on middle school students’ development in note-reading, pitch production accuracy, and musical expression. This study analyzed rubric-scored student performance recordings alongside teacher survey …

A Curious Companion: Care, Curiosity, And Companion Species In The Complete Adventures Of Curious George, Charlotte Brooks '26

Honor Scholar Theses

This thesis examines the Curious George series through Donna Haraway’s companion species framework in order to analyze how narratives of care, curiosity, and goodness structure human–animal relationships within the stories. Focusing on the first seven books written and illustrated by H. A. Rey and Margret Rey, as compiled in The Complete Adventures of Curious George (2001), the project uses close textual and visual analysis to examine how George’s curiosity repeatedly generates disruption that is managed through intervention, discipline, and forgiveness by human authority figures, particularly the man with the yellow hat. Drawing on Haraway’s concepts of companion species, naturecultures, and …

Manufacturing Collapse: American Power And The Dissolution Of The Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia, Jonah Michael Hillmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This thesis argues that the United States systematically worked to destabilize the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and initiate regime change through economic sanctions, propaganda campaigns, funding of political opposition movements, and the facilitation of NATO bombing campaigns. Through an examination of recently declassified U.S. government documents, National Security Council briefings, and diplomatic correspondence, a more complicated reality of U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia emerges. Evidence reveals that the Clinton Administration leveraged the real humanitarian crisis in Kosovo to advance post-Cold War strategic interests, particularly the political and economic unification of Europe under NATO. Organized into three thematic chapters: Militaristic Involvement, Economic …

American Heresiology: Exclusionary Rhetoric In The Development Of Early Christian And Rabbinic Jewish Identity, And The Polarizing Narratives That Inform Contemporary Religio-Political Discourse In The United States, Taylor Cripe '26

Honor Scholar Theses

Emerging from the highly diverse religious landscape of second-century Judea, Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism did not arise organically as separate religious categories but were deliberately formed into theologically distinct groups. Writers of a genre of religious literature called heresiology engaged in the exercise of defining their traditions by the process of identifying theological alternatives, establishing orthodoxy by determining and repudiating possible heresies. Their effort in the second century to establish these religious categories by the explicit identification of the theological boundaries around them evidences the intentional creativity involved in the initial development of these familiar religious categories. The self-definitions created …

Lexical Selection And New Word Formation In Apex Legends, Genevieve Dickerson

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This research observes the use of language within FPS gaming. Data was collected by solo queuing into the battle royale FPS, Apex Legends, and analyzing the way the player group develops different verbiage to meet the communication needs of the game. Four forms of word-formation mechanisms were observed: compounding (hitbox), borrowing (heaven), noun-verb conversion (spawn), and new-word formation (int-ing). This work supports the hypothesis that the lexical formations which are most-opted for within these games result from noun-verb conversion, due to the fact that these formations are typically monosyllabic and thus more efficient within time-sensitive gameplay. This research explores …

Entiscum Yrfe Ealdniflunga: Meter And Poetic Style In Tolkien’S Old English Attila, Galen Miller-Atkins

Journal of Tolkien Research

Tolkien famously wrote several poems in Old English and Gothic; however, these remain understudied for their philological and poetic qualities relative to his modern English poetic corpus. In the Old English Poem of Attila Tolkien adapts the Old Norse poem Atlakviða into Old English. This essay analyzes the meter and poetic techniques in Old English Poem of Attila, especially in relation to the closely related, Eddic poem Atlakviða. The Old English Poem of Attila exhibits verse patterns and vocabulary from the Old Norse original, but it is firmly rooted in the Old English poetic tradition. Tolkien deliberately blends …

Review Of Christian Conversion And Mission: A Brief Cultural History. By Andrew F. Walls., Misael Cornelio

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

A review of Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History. By Andrew F. Walls.

The Modern Shift In The Roman Catholic Understanding Of Speaking In Tongues, John Gresham

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

Over the course of the twentieth century, the Roman Catholic understanding of speaking in tongues shifted from viewing the gift as always and exclusively xenolalia (infused knowledge of foreign languages) to a view of tongues as primarily glossolalia (inspired praise not in any known human language). This theological shift is reflected in standard Catholic reference works and in the ordinary teachings of the Catholic magisterium. This shift was a result of Catholic acceptance of historical-critical study of Scripture, a new understanding of charisms, ecumenical openness to the gifts of other Christian traditions, and most significantly, the rise of the Charismatic …

Filming Modernity And Islam In Colonial Egypt, Eid Mohamed

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Heba Arafa Abdelfattah, Filming Modernity and Islam in Colonial Egypt (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

Subaltern Women, State Neglect, And Climate Precarity: Rethinking Forest Landscape Governance In Indonesia, Titiek Kartika Hendrastiti, Siti Kusujiarti

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This article examines the social positioning and struggles of subaltern women in East Java, Indonesia, within the intersecting conditions of state neglect and climate precarity in Forest Landscape Governance (FLG). Drawing on field research conducted between 2022 and 2023, it employs Postcolonial Feminist Political Ecology (PFPE) and Postcolonial Feminist Participatory Action Research (PFPAR) to analyze how governance regimes simultaneously depend upon yet marginalize women’s ecological labor. Based on field conversations, storytelling, focus group discussions, participatory drawing, and community dialogues in Banyuwangi and Trenggalek, the study shows that subaltern women remain largely invisible within formal governance frameworks, despite their central role …

“I Ignored Western Media And Went Down The Rabbithole No One Warns You About”: An Exoticization Genre On Youtube, Dixon D. Dayton

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Unnoticed Witnesses Of History: First-Hand Accounts Of Ukrainian Women In South Carolina During Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine, Madeline R. Fyock

Senior Theses

Language and other cultural symbols have become widely contested in post-Soviet Ukraine, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The conflict prompted many in Ukraine and its diaspora to re-negotiate and affirm Ukrainian national identity through language, traditions, and culture. The ways in which national identity is signaled in Ukraine has been widely studied in the wake of 2022, but less research has investigated how similar trends are occurring in migratory contexts, where conflict and displacement play crucial roles in identity construction. This study examines the ways that Ukrainian immigrant women in South Carolina signal their …

The Middle-Class Rip-Off'? Subsiding Culture In Contemporary Ireland, Connell Vaughan Dr

Irish Communication Review

In the last few years (roughly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic) there has been a noted increase in state-led cultural funding in Ireland. Key examples include the raise in the financial allocation to the Arts Council, the introduction of the Basic Income for the Arts scheme, and increased sports capital funding. With reference to the official communication documents of these cases (so-called ‘grey literature’) and deploying the classic 1982 episode of the British sitcom Yes, Minister, ‘The Middle-Class Rip-Off,’ which pitches sports funding against support for the arts, as a satirical lens, this paper reflects on the contemporary …

Generative Ai As Artificial Audience, Chrystina Scoglietti

Distinguished Student Scholarship Collection

This paper examines generative artificial intelligence as a distinct communicative development that reshapes rhetorical practice and composition pedagogy. Situating generative AI within a historical framework of communicative revolutions—including primary orality, literacy, and secondary (digital) orality—the paper argues that generative AI constitutes a new form of literacy rather than a mere extension of digital media. By producing near‑human language and creative output in direct response to user input, generative AI functions not only as a compositional tool but also as an artificial audience to which rhetoric must be tailored. The analysis explores how this shift challenges traditional assumptions about audience, persuasion, …

Bias In The Wires: Epistemic Harms Of Linguistic Homogenization In Ai-Asisted Writing, Sarah Smith

2026 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents & Media

Hundreds of millions of users now rely on AI-generated writing for ideation, drafting, and revision. As models make linguistic decisions about their writing, they create preferences that extend to users, reshaping our capacity to articulate who we are in ways that are just beginning to be understood. By drawing on research in computer science, psychology, ethics, and sociolinguistics, this paper traces how LLMs acquire and transmit linguistic bias. Users internalize AI preferences, subtly homogenizing linguistic decisions in ways that impact communities unevenly. This constitutes a form of algorithmic epistemic injustice, which harms writers through deflated credibility and the loss of …

English Diphthongs For English Learners: The Same, But Different, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

In any language, diphthongs need to be reckoned with, but teaching diphthongs to learners of English as a new language requires greater insight and special skills. In this column, we take a look at English diphthongs, why they matter, and how they might be best handled when teaching English language learners.

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 40. A Comprehensive Bibliography Of Books And Booklets About Alfred Russel Wallace, George Beccaloni, Jasper H. Pol, Charles H. Smith Editor

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

This bibliography presents the most comprehensive listing to date of books and booklets on Alfred Russel Wallace’s life and work, in all languages and editions, while excluding AI-generated works and most print-on-demand titles. It is based on a list compiled in 2023, which was expanded through searches of online catalogues and other resources. Analysis of the 160 works reveals a marked increase in publications since the late twentieth century, substantial linguistic diversity, and the growing use of manuscript sources in scholarly studies, particularly following the online availability of Wallace’s correspondence via EPSILON.

Sapientia Ex Machina: Engaging Ai As A Meaning-Making Tool For Philosophical Practice, Austin M. Pritchett

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This paper sets out to examine whether a Large Language Model can serve as a genuine interlocutor in philosophical inquiry. With a grounding in the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and in conversation with other works in philosophy on AI, language, and the mind, the author determines the extent to which an AI's contributions to conversation can be said to participate in understanding and meaning-making rather than merely simulate it, thereby making evident the extent to which it is useful in philosophical practice.

From “I” To “We”: A Computational Analysis Of Gen Z, Collective Identity, And Generational Discourse On Reddit, Andre Mccloud

IPHS 484: Senior Seminar

Throughout time, generational differences have been studied primarily through surveys and self-report measures. These methods capture what we think but tell us little about how generations communicate and express themselves. I conduct a different method of analysis in this study. Instead of asking generations what they think, I analyze how they naturally communicate. This is done by analyzing 4,972 Reddit posts across generation-specific subreddits: r/Over60 (Boomer), r/GenX, r/Millennials, and r/GenZ. No keywords are used in the collection, allowing for natural collection of topics occurring in the subreddits. The data is analyzed using five approaches: LDA topic modeling, VADER sentiment analysis, …

What Nlp Tells Us About The Future Of Viral Journalism: A Case Study On Buzzfeed’S Strategic Pivot (2016–2025), Gwen Eisenbeis

IPHS 484: Senior Seminar

This project examines the evolution of digital journalism through a longitudinal NLP analysis of BuzzFeed headlines from 2012 to 2025. Using an NLP pipeline, the study applied cosine similarity, sentiment analysis, frequency modeling, and topic modeling to measure changes in language and focus over time. The findings reveal a decline in the listicle-heavy style that defined BuzzFeed’s early success and a rise in shopping and affiliate-driven headlines built around consumer recommendations and curated internet reactions. In 2016, positive language and numbered list formats (“17,” “19,” “best”) dominated engagement, while in 2025, terms such as “products” became the most prominent. Topic …

Ein Überblick Über Den Schwäbischen Dialekt In Bayern, Gabriel Sullivan

KU Inspires! Undergraduate Research Day

No abstract provided.

Made In Ireland: A Postcolonial Analysis Of Irish Cultural Revival And Its Impact On Ireland’S International Relations, Emma Boyd

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

This thesis examines the impact of how British colonial rule led to the decline of Irish cultural components, such as Gaelic (Gaeilge), and how postcolonial revival efforts have shaped Ireland’s modern identity and its use of soft power in international relations. Drawing on mobilization and postcolonial theories, this paper defines key concepts, mobilization, remobilization, and postcolonial identity, to provide an analytical foundation. The analysis explores how colonial policies eroded Irish culture and language, intensified by the Great Famine, and how the Irish Diaspora serves as a global network for remobilizing Irish identity abroad. The ongoing conflicts in Northern Ireland will …

Advice For Nonactualists: Embrace Metaphysically Vague Ficta, Jeffrey C. Goodman

Faculty Scholarship

I here critically discuss “the Selection Problem”, a vexing problem for metaphysicians who are realists about fictional entities and who further claim that such entities are identified with nonactualia. The Selection Problem arises due to the fact that the nonactualist is forced to defend the view that ficta are somehow discovered, or selected, by authors who then present them to us so we may entertain their exploits. But how exactly does an author manage this when there are a vast number of eligible candidates to be found in the relevant nonactual realms? I argue that the realist who is also …