Digital Commons Network^™

The Incomprehensible God Who Wants To Reveal: Exodus 40 And Sirach 24, Gilbert Perez

Obsculta

God's transcendence above everything is present in many theological traditions, who recognize and answer in a diverse number of ways the question of how to approach the incomprehensible. Using the Historical Critical Method of exegesis with examples from the works of the recently deceased Walter Brueggemann, two completely different contexts in the Old Testament: Exodus 40 and Sirach 24, are presented to show how scripture itself often responded to the question of how God is made comprehensible.

I Cry At Night Before You: Theologies Of Depression In The Psalms, Travis Spillum Osb

Obsculta

This work looks to the Psalms to discover theologies that resonate with experiences of depression. If one struggling with depression feels as if God is angry with them, that their condition is oppressing them, that loved ones have abandoned them, or that God's love for them is wavering, they can utilize the psalmist's words to voice their feelings and express their anguish in prayer to a God who is seemingly deaf to their groaning.

Paul: A Man Called To Reform Status: The Radical Practice Of “One In Christ”, Garrett S. "Faustino" Miller

Obsculta

This paper explores Saint Paul's ministerial pedagogy as he challenged Roman social hierarchies by calling believers to a radical unity as "one in Christ." By examining what this radical practice means, and what it is rooted in, this paper also urges readers toward the same radical and transformative vision of Christian oneness; a vision that seeks to build bridges rather than walls in the world today.

Assessing The Needs Of A Church’S Older Adults To Promote Their Flourishing, Royston Terrell Booker Iii

DMin Project Theses

The purpose of this project was to lay the groundwork for creating a holistic Senior Adult Ministry to support the flourishing of older adults through the activities of God’s people, the church. This approach to help older adults’ well-being is best accomplished through holistic support to enhance well-being, but many churches have not considered a holistic approach or developed a supportive capability. To create a holistic Senior Adult Ministry, I assessed the needs of senior adults in the Brentwood Hills Church of Christ (BHCC) in Nashville, Tennessee, within the United States. The findings and conclusions of this dissertation provide a …

The Parent Trip, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This one-hour solo show propels the audience from 1970s Texas to 1990s New York City. In this hilarious and heartbreaking story, Jessie Daniels tells what it means to be raised to become a 'nice white lady.' When she rejects that to embrace the magic of queerness under a disco ball, she decides to write about it, and nearly loses everything.

Human Freedom And God’S Image In Undocumented People, An Nguyen

Obsculta

This article explores the relationship of human freedom in the theological perspective and undocumented immigrants in the United States: how immigrants embody the divine image, Imago Dei, despite legal and social constraints. I will begin with the theological foundation—freedom as a distinguishing characteristic of God’s image in humanity—and analyze the complex nature of freedom as both a divine gift and a human responsibility. Additionally, I will demonstrate that the Church has a special responsibility to recognize and affirm the inherent dignity of undocumented people by drawing from Catholic social teaching, migration studies, and theological anthropology, ultimately calling for pastoral practices …

Called From Within The Community: The Vocation Of Undocumented Hispanic Men To The Diaconate, Anisabel Palma

Obsculta

This paper examines the discernment of undocumented Hispanic men to the diaconate within a diocese facing growing Hispanic populations and a shortage of Spanish-speaking clergy. Using ethnographic research, theological reflection, and historical analysis, it argues that this reality should be discerned not as a pastoral problem but as a response to concrete community needs. Interpreted through four theological perspectives (sacred vocation, divine initiative, unconventional divine choice, and the community-oriented nature of diaconal ministry) the study proposes that welcoming undocumented men into formal discernment and formation for the diaconate constitutes a faithful and ecclesial response to the Church’s mission.

Second Edition Of The Liturgy Of The Hours: Impact On The American Diaconate, Michael Walsh

Obsculta

This piece explores the upcoming Second Edition of the English Liturgy of the Hours coming to the United States. This piece touches on the psalter, hymnal, and other portions of the new edition as well as the publishing companies chosen by the USCCB to promulgate it. This piece highlights the impact this new edition can have on all of the faithful but particularly the American Diaconate.

Omnipotence And Modesty: The Still, Small Voice Of God In 1 Kings 19, Scott Cooper

Obsculta

This article examines the sovereignty of God’s self-revelation to Ezekiel in a still, small voice on Mount Horeb and considers the difficulty of reconciling competing scholarly assessments of the prophet as faithful priestly servant of YHWH or disobedient free agent. This author considers Ezekiel’s experience as a site of spiritual union with God, inspired by the exegetical work of 14th century German Dominican priest and mystic Johannes Tauler.

Five Scriptural Reflections On Grief, Patrick Russell

Obsculta

This is a piece that looks at grief through a close reading of different texts of the Old Testament. While each reflection is its own, they are one paper that gives the reader a chance to see and reflect on grief by sitting with Genesis 11:1-9, Exodus 8:20-32, Ruth 1:1-22, Job 2:11-13, and Psalm 13.

Beyond Autonomy: An Actor-Network Theory Study Of A Solo Exhibition In Indonesia, Rendy Pandita Bastari, Patra Aditia, Ganesha Puspa Nabila

Bahasa dan Seni: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Pengajarannya

In many exhibition artists are often perceived as singular and autonomous actors. Departing from the critique of this tendency, this study examines the solo exhibition Toyscapes, After Us by Indonesian artist Hilman Hendarsyah (November 2025) as a case study through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), in order to understand art exhibition as relational and socio-material practices. This study traces how exhibitions are produced through interaction between human and non-human actors within heterogeneous network. The analysis was conducted by following the actors and mapping processes of problematization, translation, and network stabilization. The findings elucidates that solo exhibition cannot be understood …

The Matrix, Spring 2026, The Women's Resource Center

The Matrix

Matrix Editor: Trinity Sue

Women's Resource Center Advisor: Marisol Ruiz

Women's Resource Center Staff (listed alphabetically):

• Namixtu'lu' Esteva
• Pamela Hernandez
• Kaylee Luna
• Izzie Rodríguez-Torres
• Alexis Sarmiento
• Venus Shearer
• Trinity Sue

Authors/Illustrators in issue (listed alphabetically):

• Megan Atherton, p. 11
• Brenna, p. 24
• Jess Carey, p. 17
• Leyla Craven, p. 20
• Annabelle Davis, p. 37
• Erica Drew, p. 18
• Sage Fowler, p. 11
• Aven Gehlert, p. 30
• Emily Hartling, p. 24
• Riley Hemenover, p. 12
• Pamela Hernandez, p. 14
• Ella Humphrey, pp. 22-23, 31, 35, and throughout
• Iran@alittlepoke, p. 13
• Kaylee Luna, pp. 25, 29
• Randi Maveety, p. 34
• Xenia McLean, …

Ion Channels As Targets For Parasiticides: A Brief Review Of Past, Present, And Future Directions, Josette V. Ricker, Mallory Mendenhall

Georgia Journal of Science

Scientists and healthcare providers have tried for decades to find parasite treatments that balance patient safety with efficacy in eliminating the pathogen. One approach is to target specifically the parasite’s important bodily functions while sparing the host. This brief review examines the historically significant antiparasitics - pyrethrins, picrotoxin, piperazine, and avermectins – all which specifically target parasite ion channels. We discuss the history of their discovery and use, which subsequently led to the development of new generations of parasiticides, and continues to inspire the search for safe and effective treatments.

Law Or Flaw: A Double – Blind Study Comparing Student Comprehension Of Real And Ai Generated Legal Case Briefs, Grant Shostak, Nick Wintz, Melissa A. Petkovsek

International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education : VISIONARIUM

In recent years, the U.S. legal system has seen an increase of legal filings using fictitious court cases or legal propositions generated by artificial intelligence (AI) (Stokel-Walker, 2026). Rules of professional responsibility require that lawyers review filings in which AI was used to ensure their accuracy (Missouri Bar, Office of Legal Ethics Counsel, 2024, Opinion No. 2024‑11) Despite this mandate, filings with fictitious cases and incorrect statements of law are being filed. Besides posing a threat to the parties to an action, such filings may set an unwarranted precedent for future cases. They also tie up court resources searching for …

Soft Korsi: An Embodied Spatial Interior System For Communal Warmth, Faezeh Panahandeh

Graduate Final Projects

ABSTRACT

Soft Korsi: An Embodied Spatial Interior System for Communal Warmth reconceptualizes the historic Iranian Korsi as an innovative textile-based interior system. Traditionally, the Korsi functioned not only as a heating device but also as a spatial, material, cultural, and embodied system, which brought people together around a shared warm focal point. The integration of a heat source, textile coverings, floor seating arrangements, closeness of bodies, and domestic traditions related to warmth made possible a collective experience, rather than an individual or environmental one.

This design project seeks to address the disappearance of the Korsi from contemporary domestic environments as …

Vestitus Auctoritate: Visual Representations Of Power In Late Roman Sicily, Angela L. Costello

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how Late Roman iconography of dress and appearance acted as visual bolsters of elite identity in the province of Sicily by engaging with two villas and their mosaic corpora: the Villa Romana del Casale, and the Villa Romana del Tellaro. Traditional Roman scholarship on power have focused on monuments, military achievements, and imperial building programs, and while these are all necessarily facets of Late Roman identity, there are valuable avenues left unexplored. Some, but not enough, attention has been given to the role of dress iconography during Late Antiquity. This study addresses this gap by investigating how …

Branding, Catalogs, And Institutional Identity: The Libraries Of Edfu And Alexandria In Historical Perspective, Patrick Roughen

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This article examines library catalogs as brand artifacts in the context of two ancient libraries: the Library of Alexandria and the library of the Temple of Horus at Edfu, Egypt. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital and brand theory, this research argues that the catalogs of these two institutions functioned as early branding instruments. The Pinakes, the catalog of the Library of Alexandria, projected a brand of universal knowledge and intellectual prestige, and the inscribed wall catalog at Edfu reflected a brand focused on sacred authority and the sustaining of cosmic order (Ma'at).  Together, they illustrate two opposing …

Influence Of Timed Repeated Readings On Grade 2 French Immersion Students' Reading Fluency And Comprehension, Kathryn Rosie Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of Timed Repeated Reading (TRR) on reading fluency, comprehension, and reading attitudes among second grade students in a French Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program in Utah. Forty-one students from two pre-existing classroom groups participated over 11 weeks, with one class receiving TRR and the other serving as a control. Fluency was measured in correct words per minute (CWPM), comprehension through cloze tests, and attitudes using a seven-item affective survey with a four-point visual scale. A mixed between-within subjects ANOVA analysed pre- and post-test data across four intervals. Results showed significant fluency gains over time for …

Heritage As Performative Sovereignty: Situated Agency And Environmental (In)Equity In The Arkansas Delta, Faisal Mohammed

Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the materiality of heritage as a proactive and strategic resource for ensuring survival and reshaping justice in rural places. Set in Phillips County, in the Arkansas Delta, a region where environmental neglect and economic marginalization are visibly apparent in the landscape, this research interrogates how a community responds to environmental crises in a contested landscape using locally driven, art-based initiatives. By centering the Water Story Project in Phillips County, funded by One Nation One Project, a national art-based initiative, I explore a ‘thin institutional ecology’ where the scarcity of regulatory oversight and intermediary civic support has …

From Athens To Jerusalem: Platonism, Richard Owen, And The Road Not Taken In Biology, Michael A. Flannery

Libraries Professional Work

Tertullian provocatively asked (circa 200 AD), “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?” The relationship between formal philosophy and religion has been a contentious battleground ever since. It has historically come into sharpest focus in biology generally, and evolutionary theory specifically. Charles Darwin clearly won the day in the short-term. His evolutionary functionalism looked like an inglorious abandonment of time-honored metaphysical realism for positivist empirical reductionism with a concomitant horizontalization of perspective that has secularized and flattened the intellectual landscape. But more recently the rise of evo-devo (evolutionary developmental …

Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield

Animal Sentience

Several commentaries on the Oldfield & Bonano (2024) target article proposed that natural behavior should play a larger role in assessing the welfare of fishes in zoos and aquariums. However, the natural-behavior concept of animal welfare has been widely criticized because natural behaviors do not necessarily improve welfare, and unnatural behaviors do not necessarily reduce it. I review the three major concepts of animal welfare — physical health, natural behavior, and affect/feelings — and argue that behavior patterns, whether natural or otherwise, should be evaluated according to their effects on health and subjective experience. Using the affect/feelings concept and the …

Darkstar: A Memoir In Essays, Sophie Hawke Isham

ETDs from 2020-2029

Darkstar: A Memoir in Essays is an essay collection that follows the last four years of my life. These essays vary in length, format, and material. The themes these essays tackle range from heavy subjects like deteriorating mental health from bipolar disorder and grief over the loss of pets and family members, to lighter subjects such as gender expression and identity, and the love surrounding me from friends, family, and relationships. While each essay can stand alone, they are more fleshed out and connected in the context and structure of this thesis. This body of work explores the various ways …

The Guardian Order, Jennifer Jayden Foster

ETDs from 2020-2029

The Guardian Order is a young adult fantasy novel set in the sacred land of Enyimel, a sanctuary sustained by magic and ancestral guardianship. The narrative follows siblings Kairos and Verena Sepher as they confront both an ecological catastrophe and a deeply personal rupture within their family. When a blight corrupts the land and destabilizes its magic, they are forced into a reluctant alliance to save their people. However, the external crisis mirrors an internal one: a lifetime of unequal parental expectations has shaped them into ideological opposites. Kairos embraces the heroic destiny prepared for him, while Verena resists a …

Bringing Clarity To Tutors' Work: Designing An Effective Writing Center Staff Handbook, Maria Bunting

ETDs from 2020-2029

Writing center literature often focuses on the documents used to justify a center’s role in the larger institution while largely ignoring internal documents that aid in training. By also answering Babcock & Thonus (2012) and Driscoll & Perdue (2014)’s call for more replicable, aggregable, and data-based (RAD) research in writing centers, this study addresses this literature gap by conducting a qualitative study about a newly-implemented handbook at a public R1 university. The author first includes a description of the collaborative document creation process before describing the empirical methods used to assess the handbook’s effectiveness. The findings illustrate how effective handbooks …

[2026 Honorable Mention] Impact Of Chicana Rewritings Of La Virgen De Guadalupe And La Malinche, Destiny Villarreal Quintero

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

This piece elaborates on the cultural significance of La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Malinche in Mexican/ Chicanx communities and how they impact women's gender roles.

Beyond Commemoration To Reparations: A Media Representation Analysis Of The Elaine Massacre Of 1919, Oyeronke Oyindamola Afolabi

Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the evolving public memory of the Elaine Massacre of 1919 through a critical analysis of media representation, commemorative practices, and descendant-led advocacy. Situating the massacre within the broader history of racial violence in the United States, the study argues that its significance extends beyond the events of 1919 to include the long-term processes of historical silencing, narrative distortion, and contested remembrance that have shaped its afterlife. Drawing on interdisciplinary frameworks from memory studies, critical heritage studies, and media discourse analysis, the research employs a qualitative thematic analysis of contemporary media publications from 2018 to 2024. Guided by …

The Hunt For Eden: Humanity’S Journey Home Through The Epics Of Milton And Homer, Hannah Pryor

Masters Theses

This thesis argues that the recurrent theme of loss and home in the Western Literature tradition reflects humanity’s innate and theological memory of losing Eden. An examination of Homer’s The Odyssey and John Milton’s Paradise Lost in comparison with the Biblical text serve both as literary companions and ethical dichotomies. Some of the greatest pieces of Western Literature highlight the greatest tragedy and triumph the world has ever and will ever know – the loss of Paradise and the hunt for Eden. Nothing is perhaps more heartbreaking and inspiring than reading and living the story of humanity’s journey home.

Post-Machine | You Vs. The Algorithm: A Creative Act Of Rebellion, Matthew Schultz

Masters Theses

Algorithms have become intertwined with everyday life, infiltrating both personal and social environments. They have transformed from influenceable tools useful for customizing information to machines of influence that are now dictating standards. These machines have begun morphing individuals idea of the self. This has become an epidemic of lost identity and fragmented self in order to conform to algorithmic acceptance. Emerging professionals in creative fields in the last decade have become particularly susceptible to this influence. If not addressed, young creatives will soon lose any autonomy of self and have a homogenized identity that matches the demands of the algorithm …

Satellite Of Mu'lysa, Ryan Christopher Miller

Masters Theses

My thesis proposal details the ways in which my early ideas for my novella, Satellite of Mu’lysa, came about amidst a time of personal despair. The early 2012 draft was darker, and emotionally draining, lacking a positive ending. In the course of over a decade of reworks and personal growth, both as a writer and as a person, the story is becoming a metaphorical diary of hope and forgiveness. Many movies, authors, as well as religious and philosophical texts have helped inspire and shape my story over the years, as I’ve revised my plotline and characterizations. Although I have always …

Celtic Catharsis: A Look Into The Emotional Appeal Of Irish Music In The United States, Coralyn M. Kutzner

Masters Theses

This research study investigates the emotional connection and interest in Irish music within the Irish musician community in America. The background for this study includes an in-depth look at the history of Irish and Irish music culture in America, as well as a brief overview of the connection between music and emotions. The study itself was conducted in various locations where there was live Irish music playing. Through the use of personal interviews and an emotional evaluation scale, participants were asked to recount their first encounters with Irish music and the emotional connection they feel because of and while playing …