Digital Commons Network^™

America’S Nazis: Denazification, Operation Paperclip, And The Cold War, Oliver L. B. Marcel

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This essay examines how Operation Paperclip and the postwar recruitment of German scientists influenced American denazification policy during the Cold War. I argue that the United States’ pursuit of scientific and technological advancement repeatedly took precedence over moral and legal accountability. From the Truman and Eisenhower administrations to the Space Race and the creation of the Office of Special Investigations, federal policy reflected a consistent pattern of prioritizing progress over justice. The study demonstrates that Cold War imperatives fundamentally reshaped U.S. political identity and its relationship with former World War II enemies.

"But Will I Get In Trouble?": Negotiating Teacher Identity And Self-Censorship Amid Book Bans In Utah, Annika Nielson

Theses and Dissertations

Book banning is becoming an increasingly prominent and contested issue in the United States. The focus usually lies on school and district policy, banned book lists, and state legislation, but the impact on the daily lives of teachers is often overlooked. Their decision-making processes are key to determining the books that make it into classrooms, and self-censorship often occurs prior to formal book bans (Watkins & Ostenson, 2015; Woo et al., 2023). This study examines how teachers experience book banning in their individual lives through the way they navigate competing pressures and values when selecting books to teach. Utah teachers …

The Story Game: Dissuading The Abolition Of Man With Narrative Intellectual Virtue & The Hunger Games, Camille Bewley

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

Relativism in modern America is leading society toward the fruition of C.S. Lewis’ warning of the abolition of man. This nation once founded on freedom inches closer to the dystopia which Suzanne Collins depicts in her Hunger Games series. This paper recognizes the growing need for humanity to realign with truth and universal values, first by reorienting itself to narratives. Through intellectual virtues of understanding and prudence as defined by Aristotle, society can translate stories into their inherent purpose; seeing truth and reality within the bottle of imagination. Stories contain the answers, narratives are the way humanity subscribes to reality. …

Overcoming Apathy And Complacency Through Discipleship Micro-Groups At Spencer Church Of Christ, Jerrard A. Davis

Harding School of Theology Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Loyal Sons: German-Jewish Patriotic Assimilation In Modern Germany, Yitzi Dear

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The modern history of Germany’s Jews developed through two contemporaneous and parallel transformations across the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: first, the development of the German national identity and creation of the German state; second, the gradual emancipation of Germany’s Jews and their integration into society. As a result of these two simultaneous developments, the majority of German Jews increasingly defined themselves through their German nature and connection to the state. Assimilation became not only a path to survival but also a sincere expression of ideological and cultural conviction.

Amid the social, political, and economic crises of the Weimar Republic, a …

Subversive Speculative Theology In Women's Stories From The Mormon Home Literature Movement, Rachel Meibos Helps

Theses and Dissertations

In the 1910s, Mormon women used sentimental speculative fiction published in official Relief Society Magazine to engage theological questions often reserved for male ecclesiastical authority. This paper examines three short stories: Edna Coray's "A Quitter–Almost." (1918), Lucy May Green's "A Whiff of Ether" (1919), and Laura Jenkins's "Beyond the Portals" (1916), each of which depicts a woman's encounter with the spirit world at the moment of death or near-death. Drawing on the Mormon Home Literature movement and the broader tradition of sentimental fiction as political and moral discourse, I argue that these authors used narrative to fill gaps in official …

The Storied Life: Biblical Metanarrative And The Human Experience, Samantha Jones

25th Annual A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (2026)

The storytelling animal. This eclectic title was coined by Alasdair MacIntyre in his famous philosophical work After Virtue. Notice MacIntyre does not call man “the working animal who also tells stories,” nor the “rule following animal who enjoys the trivial pursuit of narrative.” He calls man the storytelling animal because he has discovered that stories are not the just one characteristic of the human experience, they are so much more. To be a human is to be a storyteller, and to be a storyteller is to be human. This claim is not specific to philosophers like MacIntyre, but is an …

Solitude And Busyness, Eliza Kuhlmann

Ex Sapientia Loqui

This essay addresses a prevalent problem in modern society: excessive and out-of-control busyness. It outlines some of the problems of busyness and then offers a solution---namely, solitude. Along with defining the phenomena, the benefits and practical applications of solitude are shared in an attempt to counteract some of the harms of busyness.

Women In The Workplace: Changing Pressures Of Appearance And Behavior, Riley E. Bubacz

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

Since 1870, when women were first allowed in the London workforce, there has been discrimination between men and women, even with efforts to achieve equality. Today, women are still expected to do a disproportionate amount of the household labor in addition to maintaining a full-time job while dealing with the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. This study seeks to understand the pressures that women still face in the workforce regarding appearance and behavior, and how this may contribute to experiences of burnout. In previous studies, women have expressed fears of being assertive or not wearing makeup due to …

Crossing The Border: A Participatory Action Research Project For The Brentwood Oaks Church Of Christ To Engage With Spanish-Speaking Neighbors Through Missional Hospitality, Charles Johanson

Harding School of Theology Dissertations and Theses

Throughout Scripture, hospitality occupies a central place in the mission of God. Welcoming the stranger across cultural barriers requires the church to practice missional hospitality by playing the role of host and, especially, guest in the neighborhood. Moreover, small group experimentation facilitates the innovation necessary to effectively practice missional hospitality. Through experimentation in cross-cultural situations, church members increase their awareness of cultural differences that leads to opportunities for the congregation to welcome neighbors in loving, sacrificial, and hospitable ways. Brentwood Oaks Church of Christ (BOCC) resides next to a neighborhood with a high population of Spanish-speaking immigrants. The goal of …

Critical Explorations: Using Feminist And Artful Inquiry In An Adolescent Literature Class, Emily L. Freeman

Feminist Pedagogy

Using feminist and artful inquiry in teacher education courses creates spaces of resistance to normative modes of sharing knowledge. The Critical Explorations project is the final assignment for a required young adult and adolescent literature course and requires that students engage in creative modes of expression when sharing their research. The teaching activity opens up new possibilities for engagement with texts and research questions that works to disrupt traditional English Language Arts assessments.

Do Not Dismiss: How Community Is Built Through Kpop And Their Fandoms, Re Steinberg

Senior Seminars and Capstones

Fans of the music genre Kpop have been dismissed as juvenile or unimportant by some scholars and social commentators. Existing scholarship tends to focus on how the kpop fandom creates a space where the fans form groups amongst themselves, ex: dance cover groups, rather than how the fandoms influence individual motivations and benefits of participation. My aim with this study is to consider the effects that Kpop fandoms have on how fans identify and present themselves, feel a sense of belonging, and partake in the creative process. By using methods of oral history and content analysis of online social spaces, …

From Awe To Anxiety: Investigating Art-Induced Self-Transcendence Using Virtual Reality, Monica V. Weedman, Kutter Callaway, Daniel M. Shafer, Tyler Greenway, Jo- Ann Tsang, Wade C. Rowatt

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Introduction: Art has been shown to evoke a range of emotions, yet the mechanisms underlying these responses remain underexplored. Across three studies using between- and within-subjects designs, we examined how viewing original photographic art in virtual reality (VR) influences self-transcendent emotions and related affective states.

Method: In Study 1, participants viewed photographs in one of three VR contexts (museum, warehouse, church sanctuary). In Study 2, participants viewed the same photographs in a VR museum context where the photo scale varied (small vs. large scale). In Study 3, online participants viewed video recordings of the VR museum with or without computer-generated …

Death And The Uncanny: Freud, Grief, And The Horror Of Inevitability In Ari Aster’S Hereditary And Midsommar, Courtney Michelle Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This thesis explores how Ari Aster’s Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) create ongoing discomfort among viewers through their shared focus on death and the tensions between fate and freewill.

Using Freud’s concept of the uncanny as a lens, this thesis argues that these films are disturbing because they introduce familiar horrors in a newly unsetting way, forcing audience members to confront deep rooted fears of grief, loss, and the lack of control.

By repeatedly forcing his audience and characters to confront death and the illusion of agency, Aster successfully creates the prolonged anxiety and dread felt by many viewers of …

Working At The Margins In Interwar Yugoslavia, Stefano Petrungaro

Central European Studies

Prostitutes, beggars, folk healers, peddlers, wandering artists, and bear-leaders: Working at the Margins in Interwar Yugoslavia shows how work shaped their relations with the state and the rest of their world. The protagonists of the book’s story lived on the fringes of society and engaged in activities that were only partially recognized, from a legal and social point of view, as proper jobs, while some of them had no job at all. This book looks at Yugoslavia’s disciplining and social engineering practices through the lens of socially marginal workers. The analysis shows that in this period the South Slav regions …

Understanding The Alternative Normative Concepts, Dewitt W. Spiller

Theses

Matti Eklund's challenge to normative realism in Choosing Normative Concepts (2017) turns on the possibility of "alternative normative concepts"—concepts that play the same normative role as ours but have different extensions. Eklund argues that the ardent realist cannot express what he calls “the further question” about which concepts to use without either trivializing the answer or changing the subject. I argue that this challenge rests on an unstated assumption about how normative concepts are differentiated. I call this the Fragility Assumption. What I seek to show is that this assumption is not obligatory; there are live views of normative concepts …

Angkringan Names In Semarang: A Linguistic Landscape Study, Nurul Maghfiroh, Suhandano Suhandano, Aprillia Firmonasari

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

The article reveals the linguistic landscape study of angkringan names in Semarang City. It covers language preference, language inference, and language preservation on signages. Researchers collected 140 pictures of angkringan signages from 10 sub-districts of Semarang. Observation and interviews are also conducted to obtain comprehensive linguistic landscape data. Qualitative analysis indicates that there are two naming patterns: monolingual and bilingual. The monolingual analysis identifies that the most preferred language code is Javanese, followed by Indonesian, English, and Sanskrit. Meanwhile, in the bilingual pattern, the dominant language combination used is Indonesian-Javanese, followed by Javanese-English, Javanese-Indonesian, Javanese-Dutch, Sanskrit-English, and Sundanese-English. Meanwhile, angkringan …

A Unique 21st Century Relevant Analysis Of Carter G. Woodson’S The Mis-Education Of The Negro And Teacher Occupational Resilience, Nadrian D. Antoine

Virginia English Journal

This article offers a contemporary analysis of Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), emphasizing its enduring relevance to 21st-century educational challenges and the emerging framework of Teacher Occupational Resilience (TOR). Woodson’s central argument that American schooling functions as a system of psychological conditioning that marginalizes Black identity, history, and agency remains strikingly applicable in modern debates on culturally relevant pedagogy, systemic inequity, and digital‑age misinformation. The article explores Woodson’s critique of leadership, the omission of curriculum, and the reproduction of miseducation by credentialed yet culturally detached Black professionals. It then connects these insights to TOR theory, which …

Beyond Trends: The Potential Influence Of The Ela Teachers Of Tiktok, Heather Lynn Wright, Lauren May

Virginia English Journal

This paper describes a study on content from secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers of TikTok and their potential influence on future teachers. There were two research questions: (1) What information is being dispersed through TikTok specifically for secondary ELA teachers?; (2) What connotations about secondary ELA teaching are implied implicitly or explicitly through the tone of the TikTok creator? TikToks were examined through a three-part framework, considering the constructs of performances (Goffman, 1956), stickiness (Zott et al., 2000), and affinity spaces (Gee, 2004). Using a systematic approach, 50 secondary ELA TikTok accounts were identified and the top 20 …

Apprenticing Towards Deeper Learning In The Ela Classroom: Using Young Adult Literature To Support Students’ Mastery, Identity, And Creativity, Julianna Kershen, Kacy M. Price, Nynke Wimp, Evie Jackson, Kaitlin Rogers

Virginia English Journal

This practitioner focused article highlights the perspectives of pre-service teachers and undergraduate researchers investigating the kinds of learning interactions and instructional decisions that result in deeper learning outcomes for high school students. Deeper learning outcomes are often described as 21^st century skills, including mastery learning, support of holistic and scholarly student identities, and the ability to engage collaboratively with critical and creative problem-solving skills. The authors suggest a series of young adult literature texts that can serve as springboards into project-based learning opportunities that provide authentic and real world-connected activities, iterative cycles of learning, peer-peer collaboration, and in-depth disciplinary …

Language Choices On Tanzanian Instagram, Carolyne Ulomy

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

This study examines multilingual practices on Instagram within Tanzania’s rapidly growing computer-mediated communication (CMC) landscape. Using a qualitative corpus-based approach, I analyzed 400 Instagram posts from 40 users and conducted five techno-biographical interviews to explore what shapes language choice and how it relates to content. Findings show that Tanzanian Instagram users draw on Swahili, English, Swanglish/Kiswanglish, Community Languages (CLs) and Foreign Languages (FLs) to communicate and construct online identities. Interview data indicate that language choice is influenced by the intended audience, post content, brand image, language accessibility, the original language of the material and relationships between interlocutors. Corpus patterns further …

Du Désespoir À L’Insoumission : La Mort Comme Langage De Résistance Chez Les Esclaves, Kolade M. Kenneth

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

L’expérience de la mort pendant l’époque de l’esclavage constitue un phénomène à la fois complexe et profondément tragique. Pour les esclaves, la mort était souvent inévitable, résultant de conditions de vie inhumaines, de mauvais traitements, de maladies ou des dangers liés aux tentatives d’évasion. Les individus réduits en esclavage étaient soumis à un travail extrême dans les plantations ou d’autres environnements dangereux, sans considération pour leur santé ou leur bien-être. La malnutrition, le surmenage et les punitions brutales entraînaient fréquemment des décès prématurés. Cette étude ne considère pas la mort seulement comme un événement biologique, mais comme une forme de …

Woven Color: Historical Uses Of Color Theory Woven Into Fiber Art Practice, Mary K. Greenwood

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This semester-long project, created in Material Exploration, examines the use of historical color theory within contemporary fiber art to evoke emotion and narrative. Drawing from established color systems, artistic movements, and artist inspirations, the work explores how color relationships, such as harmony, contrast, and saturation, can communicate mood and meaning. Through experimentation with textile materials and processes, each piece integrates intentional color schemes to enhance storytelling through both visual and tactile elements. Ultimately, the project highlights how applying historical color theory within fiber art can deepen emotional resonance and connect traditional practices with contemporary expression.

Yellowjackets And White Hoods?!: The Mistreatment Of Bipoc Characters, Suki Shepherd

KUCC -- Kutztown University Composition Conference

In 2021, a psychological horror television series inspired by Lord of the Flies, reimagined as a high school girls' soccer team, was released. The highly skilled team from Wiskayok High School is on the way to the national championship game when their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. With both a teenage timeline and an adult timeline, the show switches between the girls' desperate survival and descent to madness in the woods and modern times, where the truth of how they made it out starts to be revealed.

Growing Up Muslim In America: Discrimination And Religious Identity In Emerging Adulthood, Samira Saleh

Dissertations

This study examined the impact of depression and discrimination on religious identity development among emerging adult Muslims (ages 18–29) in the United States, with attention to religious visibility and gender. Using a cross-sectional survey design, participants completed validated measures including the Perceived Islamophobia Scale, Everyday Discrimination Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and Centrality of Religiosity Scale. Grounded in Arnett’s Theory of Emerging Adulthood and Social Identity Theory, the study addresses gaps in research on Muslim mental health and identity within Western sociopolitical contexts. Participants were recruited via university listservs, Muslim Student Associations, social media, and community organizations, and completed a brief …

2025-2026 Woodwind Department Recital, Betania Canas, Mia Cotton, Ay Kawasaki, Aj Meyer, Daniel Cruz, Amanda Rearden, Karen Trujillo, Rishi Gurnani, Chase Hogan, Juanita Jaimes, Noah Suarez, Nicholas Weathers, Jacob Lomboy, Derek Lund, Ethan Thompson, Ziling Wang

Studio Recitals

No abstract provided.

Krain, Richard, Philip Chan

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Richard Krain was born in the Bronx and lived there until the mid-1960s. His parents, to his knowledge, also grew up in the Bronx. His mother, before she married and had children, was a secretary; after, she was a housewife. Krain has a brother who was six years his senior, who would recall to him his childhood experiences during World War Two. His father was a salesman and worked with big department stores and, later, with Christmas decorations as a manufacturer’s representative.

Krain lived on the Grand Concourse at 164^th Street, across from Joyce Kilmer Park. …

Does Traditional Music From Different Cultures Affect Sleep Quality Differently?, Keiarra J. Gonzales

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Sleep is crucial for maintaining a balanced metabolism and managing appetite, blood sugar, and diabetes. There are many global sleep challenges among college students, which includes what level of priority sleep is in college populations. Therefore, this study covers the topic question Does Traditional Music From Different Cultures Affect Sleep Quality Differently. Furthermore, this study will include peer-reviewed articles, comparison of musical traditions, and analysis of tempo, instrumentation, and cultural familiarity.

Exploring Sequential Technical Practices Towards Skill Development And Musical Expression In Violin Performance And String Pedagogy Methods, Erin Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation proposes the Erin Kim System, a pedagogical framework designed to support sequential technical development and musical expression in beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of violin performance. This system examines how structured technical progression, guided repertoire sequencing, and a nurturing learning environment with the teacher and parents can foster skill acquisition and long-term musical engagement among violin students. Musical enjoyment and inspiration serve as primary motivators for learning, particularly when students are encouraged to work toward performing aspirational repertoire such as the Sibelius Violin Concerto. By organizing repertoire and supplemental exercises in a clear step-by-step process, this system enables …

Interview With Orca Award Winner Paul Olson, Unl English; Literature, Curricular Reform, Great Plains Studies, Mark A. Griep, Paul A. Olson

UNL ORCA Interview Series

Paul Olson was awarded the ORCA in 1984. He was born in 1932 in Washburn, Wisconsin. During his youth, his family also farmed in Nebraska and South Dakota. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. Next, he earned a master’s in English from the University of Nebraska, had a Fulbright fellowship to spend a year at London University in England, and earned his doctorate in medieval and Renaissance studies from Princeton University in New Jersey. In 1957, he joined UNL as an assistant professor of English and was soon promoted to full professor. One of his …