Digital Commons Network^™

Reading Between Lines: Mapping El Orinoco Ilustrado, Guillermo Pupo Pernet

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines El Orinoco Ilustrado (EOI) by Joseph Gumilla as a layered textual and cartographic artifact central to the production of colonial knowledge in the Orinoco River basin. Moving beyond surface narratives of evangelization and exploration, it interrogates the sombras and silencios implanted in the Jesuit chronicle. Through an intradisciplinary approach combining literary analysis, archival research, and visual studies, the study reveals how EOI helped construct imperial visions of space, race, and resource extraction in eighteenth-century Spanish America. The dissertation is structured around six chapters. Chapter One outlines a theoretical framework. Chapter Two provides a longue durée historical context, …

An Analysis Of Portuguese Colonial Representations Of Sinhalese Women, Chandra R. De Silva, Ramani Hettiarchchi

History Faculty Publications

The history of Sri Lanka until recently has been written mostly as the history of men in the country. This has been particularly true of the early modern period, for which existing records are mostly those of visiting colonizers who were mostly men, writing about their dealings with those in power or with those from whom they could gain profit. This article is an attempt to collect and analyze the admittedly limited data on how the Portuguese who gained political authority over parts of the coastal areas saw local women. It is limited to the women of the majority community …

Rubbing Away Respect: How Repeated Touch Alters The Meaning Of Women’S Statues, Olivea Kittrell

Theses

This thesis examines how repeated public interactions with statues of women, particularly the ritualized rubbing of their breasts, alter both the material surfaces and symbolic meanings of statues. We will focus on three bronze sculptures: the Molly Malone statue in Dublin, the Juliet statue in Verona, and the Bust of Dalida in Paris. Through these, we will investigate how statues created with commemorative intent become sites of sexualized behavior based on gender. The problem this thesis addresses is the lack of scholarly analysis on how gendered public interaction physically and symbolically transforms statues of women. While some scholarship covers either …

Political Discoveries In A Žižek Substack Project Critical Digital Studies, Edward Sankowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

This review essay analyzes Slavoj Žižek’s recent turn to Substack as a publishing platform, examining both his motivations and the philosophical and political implications of this medium for contemporary critical theory. Sankowski and Harris argue that Žižek’s Substack writings continue long-standing themes in his work—anti-capitalism, ecological crisis, updated Communism, and the cultural dimensions of ideology—while also revealing notable shifts, including heightened pessimism about historical progress and new reflections on environmental catastrophe. The authors assess the advantages and pitfalls of Substack for intellectual discourse, including its circumvention of traditional editorial “censorship,” its contribution to information glut, and its role in fostering …

Virtus Fidelis: Design In Modern-Day Catholicism, Elisha N. Butryn

Honors College Theses

Art plays a major role in how we view the world, and particularly, how we view religion. This thesis explores those themes and how design appears in modern-day Catholicism, and how Catholicism can impact design through the development of the brand Virtus Fidelis.

The Edge Of The World: An Examination Of The Wild West In California, 1840-1880, Chloe J. Cushing

Master's Theses

“The Edge of the World” revolves around the history of the Wild West in California through the lens of Richard Maxwell Brown’s Western War of Incorporation theory. Rather than being a mythology sensationalized by Hollywood and literature, for the Golden State, the Wild West was a very real and tangible part of its early-American era, characterized by U.S. imperialism, high murder rates, anti-authoritarianism, and other rampant forms of chaos that affected the state for generations. By examining the conditions and effects of the late Mexican period, the Gold Rush, Confederate sympathizers, and the Southern Pacific Railroad, this thesis highlights the …

Autoethnography, Poetic Performance Narratives, And Pláticas As Dialogues Of Radical Love, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This piece examines Autoethnography, Poetic Performance Narratives, and Pláticas as decolonial methodologies that challenge the coloniality of knowledge and center voices historically excluded from academic discourse. These approaches honor traditions rooted in community, solidarity, and radical love, presenting lived realities without oversimplification while inviting readers to inhabit contradictions and imagine ethical possibilities for equity. Grounded in Latin American and Chicana/Latina/Indígena feminist scholarship, this work situates these practices within a legacy of decolonial epistemologies that resist dominant Western paradigms and affirm lived experience as a site of theory-making. Through this lens, the piece seeks to: (1) bear witness to shared experiences, …

Attention - Volume 10

be Still

No abstract provided.

Curating Serenity, Archana Banda

be Still

Attention to me is appreciating the simplest things amidst the joys and hardships of life. Throughout my medical school journey, I have rediscovered the importance of practicing self-care, gratitude, and embracing an abundance mindset. Being self-aware about our own health and optimizing it allows us to care for patients with the utmost compassion and generosity. Paying attention as future physicians means empathizing with patients at their most vulnerable moments and restoring hope in a brighter future. Attention and generosity are inherently interconnected because when providers are attentive to their patients’ health concerns, they can be generous with their time and …

John Henryism And The African American Experience: An Exploration Of Risk And Protective Factors And Health Outcomes, Joseph L. Twitdy

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Racial discrimination has been tied to adverse mental and physical health outcomes among African Americans. In the face of this adversity, African Americans have developed strategies for coping with everyday experiences of discrimination. One such coping method is based on the concept of John Henryism. The folktale of John Henry tells the story of an African American steel-driver racing against a steam-powered drill to clear a path for trains through a mountain. Although John Henry wins the race, he later dies due to exhaustion, ultimately passing with his hammer in his hand. The psychological concept of John Henryism (JH) refers …

Amplifying Mother Leaders’ Voices: A Feminist Inquiry Into Gender Inequity In Higher Education Leadership, Katherine Bard

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Women now comprise more than half of mid- and upper-level administrators in higher education, yet they remain underrepresented in the most senior leadership roles. For mothers in leadership, this underrepresentation is compounded by gendered structures, expectations, and norms that shape their personal and professional lives in distinct ways. While scholarship has examined working motherhood broadly and gender inequity in higher education separately, little research has focused on how mother leaders experience and interpret gender inequity in higher education leadership. This study sought to address that gap by exploring the lived experiences of ten mother leaders working at research-intensive (R1) universities …

Operation Paperclip And The Use Of National Security: Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum, Kirsten Hawkins

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

National security is a term that many are familiar with in the twenty-first century. In the United States it is commonly believed that its widespread use began after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. However, this work examines how the United States government has used the term and changed its definition in its application during Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a Second World War operation created to secure the scientific and technical research of German scientists at the end of the war in 1945.

This thesis examines Operation Paperclip and its expansion …

“War Is God” And “Unguessed Kinships”: Blood Meridian And Cormac Mccarthy’S “Border Tetralogy”, Seth Reeves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies the metaphysics of philosopher Gilles Deleuze to Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian, arguing that the novel initiates a thread of immanent subjectivity that unfolds throughout the Border Trilogy that follows it. Against a hierarchical metaphysics of transcendence, specifically an inverted Platonic Idealism, Blood Meridian dramatizes an immanent world of “optical democracy,” a prose style that levels the human and nonhuman and eludes subject and object categories. The kid’s autonomy from Judge Holden’s violent domination marks the truncated beginning of a Deleuzian subjectivity of becoming-other and immanent kinship. This incomplete gesture continues in the Border Trilogy, where …

Diseño Visual, Identidad De Género Y Diversidad Cultural En La Animación Contemporánea: El Caso De Raya And The Last Dragon, Elisabet Fonts González

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

En los últimos años, la animación ha evolucionado hacia representaciones más inclusivas de género y diversidad cultural. Raya and the Last Dragon (López Estrada & Hall, 2021) destaca como un caso significativo de esta transformación, integrando elementos visuales, narrativos y simbólicos que reconfiguran los arquetipos femeninos tradicionales. Este estudio adopta un enfoque cualitativo centrado en el análisis visual, narrativo y simbólico de los personajes Raya, Namaari y Sisu. Basándose en fuentes primarias del proceso creativo y marcos teóricos de la animación y los estudios de género (Furniss, 2017; Lauretis, 1987; Wells, 1998), presta especial atención al diseño de personajes, la …

Animación Por Mujeres Colombianas: La Potencia Expresiva Del Trabajo Hecho A Mano, Daniela Posada Sarmiento

GDI. Revista de investigación de Género, Diseño e Innovación

Este artículo busca situar el trabajo de tres mujeres animadoras colombianas dentro del campo de investigación sobre el género y la animación, evidenciando la escasa presencia de sus aportes en la investigación académica. Se pretende demostrar la hipótesis que sostiene que: existen obras de animación contemporánea desarrolladas por mujeres colombianas que contienen aportes formales, conceptuales, estéticos y poéticos significativos para la investigación en torno a la animación. En primer lugar, se desarrolla un Estado de la cuestión con enfoque crítico, que permite identificar cómo se ha ignorado la participación de mujeres colombianas en los estudios sobre animación. Posteriormente, se caracterizan …

Accepting Film: A Study On Tradition, Values Change And Continuity In Tebuireng Pesantren, Jombang, Nurman Hakim

Antropologi Indonesia

The pesantren tradition contains values that become a guide for life and become a source for the actions of santri and kiai. The values in the pesantren tradition in the form of akhlak (morals), ibadah (worship) and barokah (blessings) become an anchor for kiai and santri in responding to films that are considered products of modernity emerging from the west. In the past the act of watching and making films was rejected and considered contrary to the pesantren tradition, but slowly now films are used by pesantren to preserve the tradition itself. This article explores how values in the …

Assembling Diasporic Faith Amidst China’S Rise: (De)Territorialization And The Multi-Scalar Production Of The Guangze Zunwang Cult In The Chinese Diaspora, Ningning Chen, Orlando Woods

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Faith in the Chinese diaspora has become increasingly vibrant in the context of China’s rise as a global power. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research exploring the temple networks of the Guangze Zunwang cult, this paper advances an assemblage approach to understanding diasporic faith and investigating its multi-scalar becoming by exploring three areas of inquiry. The first investigates the evolving development of the Guangze Zunwang cult and its formation into a faith assemblage based on temple alliances, which bring people, deities, institutions, places and material objects together across (national) borders. The second explores the multi-scalar becoming in which faith assemblages are …

Confronting Settler Colonialism Through Indigenous Feminism: The Structural Roots Of Mmiw, Miah Schiavi-Munoz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S) across the United States and Canada represents a manifestation of ongoing settler colonial violence. This paper examines the MMIW crisis through the frameworks of settler colonial theory and Indigenous feminist scholarship, arguing that contemporary patterns of disappearance, assault, and murder are structural outcomes of colonial law, governance, and heteropatriarchal control. Drawing on historical analysis, legal critique, and participant observation from the 2025 MMIP Training Conference in Monterey, California, this study traces how the settler colonial logic of elimination operates through jurisdictional fragmentation, bureaucratic neglect, data erasure, resource …

Reflections In The Mirror: An Examination Of Racially Congruent Mentoring Of Black Teacher Candidates In A Teacher Education Program, Mary Louise Gregory

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The high demand for Black educators in K-12 schools across the United States has caused several teacher training programs to rethink how they prepare Black teacher candidates for the teaching workforce (Andrews et al., 2019; Blazar, 2024; Milner & Howard, 2004). Improving teacher candidate training, especially for Black teacher candidates can boost K-12 Black teacher representation. Literature on Black teacher candidate’s experiences while being mentored identifies several challenges that include issues with implicit bias, microaggressions, stereotyping and other occurrences of racial discrimination (Daly et al., 2024; Hampton et al., 2008; Kardos & Johnson-Moore, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2020). The process …

Violence As An Ecology: Women Making Safety In Khayelitsha, Melissa J. Miller-Felton

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation asks how women in Khayelitsha make safety in a place where danger has become ordinary and where the afterlives of colonialism and apartheid still determine who waits, who walks, and who arrives home. What began as a study of risk and protection grew into an inquiry about time, dignity, and responsibility. I call the framework that emerged an ecology of violence—a way of seeing how harm gathers across generations and infrastructures, and how care, exhaustion, and survival intertwine within it.

In this ecology, violence is not a single act but a confluence of registers—slow, structural, colonial, and …

When Nonbinary Becomes Binary: Exploring Transnormativity Experiences Of Gender Diverse Individuals, Yusuf Barburoğlu

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Transnormativity is a within-group framework that positions trans and nonbinary (TNB) individuals in a hierarchy of legitimacy based on adherence to binary gender norms (Johnson, 2016). Nonbinary individuals, who comprise 38% of U.S. transgender adults, face unique challenges, including systemic invalidation, misgendering, and erasure both within and outside LGBTQIA+ communities (James et al., 2024; Matsuno et al., 2024). These experiences intersect with internalized stigma and rejection expectations, contributing to mental health disparities (Budge et al., 2014; Lefevor et al., 2019). This study explores how nonbinary individuals navigate, resist, and embody transnormative pressures, using Sarah Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology and Interpretative Phenomenological …

Un-Tempering The Tempered Radical: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Female Superintendents In Neoliberal Education Systems, Melanie Fitzgerald Daniel

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The persistent and severe underrepresentation of Black women in K-12 educational leadership (just 1.4% of superintendencies) is a critical manifestation of Epistemic Injustice (Fricker, 2007) and the Architecture of Hostility. Dominant managerial paradigms in education structurally suppress the voices and devalue the expertise of Black women, leading to both testimonial injustice (credibility deficits) and hermeneutical injustice (misinterpretation of experience). This context forces them to pursue advancement within systems fundamentally structured to exclude them. This phenomenological study utilizes a nested theoretical framework, comprising Neoliberalism (macro-context), Epistemic Injustice (meso-critique), and Tempered Radicalism (Meyerson & Scully, 1995; Ngunjiri, 2012) (micro-agency), to illuminate the …

The Paradox Of Discipline: Equity, Standardization, And Black Student Outcomes In Public Schools, Latricia T. Davenport

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Despite efforts to address profound discipline disparities impacting Black students, the implementation of alternative disciplinary approaches like Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and Restorative Justice (RJ) has failed to eliminate significant disproportionality in school discipline. This study investigates how teachers navigate the challenges of disciplining Black students within a paradoxical school environment that juxtaposes equitable, human-centered methods with a historically rooted managerial paradigm emphasizing uniformity and zero tolerance. Drawing upon systemic racism and the concept of 'apprenticeship of observation,' this study explores how teachers' implicit biases about Black students are formed by long-held institutional norms and personal experiences. It …

Communication And Privacy Management Between Female Veterans, Their Military Voluntary Kin, And Biolegal Family Members, Carol Lee Tschampl-Diesing

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Military voluntary kin (MVK) refer to relationships between Service members and/or Veterans that they consider to be “like family,” despite lacking blood or legal ties. The purpose of this qualitative/interpretive communication study was to explore how female Veterans, who are the largest growing population of U.S. Veterans, discursively construct MVK relationships, navigate communication, privacy management, and boundary turbulence with their MVK and biolegal families (BLF). The researcher undertook in-depth interviews with nine female U.S. Veterans who reported having at least one MVK. The researcher posed four research questions, engaging in an interpretive analysis.

Participants described three ways they navigated interactions …

Embodied Encounters With Plankton: Ground Truth Methods As Sites For Human-Ocean Entanglement, Clarissa Chevalier

Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality: Faculty Publications

This article examines shifting methods of plankton research within contemporary oceanography through direct participatory engagement on a ten-day research cruise off the Santa Lucia Escarp- ment in February 2025. As a feminist visual science studies researcher, I reflect on how seasick- ness, sensory immersion, and embodied participation shaped my experience of plankton sampling and reveal the entanglement of oceanographic knowledge with its contexts. While remote sensing technologies – such as satellites, digital twins, and remotely operated vehicles – are increasingly shaping oceanography and producing intensified modes of ocean quantification, I argue that tactile, physical sampling methods remain indispensable in plankton …

Sex And Danger, Airborne Ranger: A Historical Analysis Of G.I. Songs, Jody Calls, And Marching Cadences, Travis G. Salley

Dissertations

Military marching cadences have long served as a core feature of basic combat training, reinforcing cohesion, discipline, and esprit de corps. Tradition attributes their origin to a Black soldier, Private Willie Duckworth, who lifted the spirits of his unit with an improvised chant during a 1944 forced march. The chant soon gained national attention and was formally adopted into Army training through the efforts of Colonel Bernard Lentz—Duckworth’s commanding officer and the author of the Army’s close order drill manual. Their relationship, framed by military hierarchy and racial inequality, reflects broader American patterns where Black cultural forms gain institutional legitimacy …

World On Fire: The Hunger Games And The Rhetoric Of Revolution, Rachel Olivares

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the decade between 2010 and 2020, more people participated in mass protests than at any other point in human history. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street and Hong Kong’s “umbrella movement,” street demonstrations exploded on a global scale. This period of global unrest coincided with another explosion: the dystopian young adult series The Hunger Games surged in popularity, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon. Following the release of the book series and its subsequent film adaptations, The Hunger Games became a global symbol of grassroots resistance as social and political movements adopted the language and symbols of its …

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

National Hero And Water Deity: The Worship Of Triệu Việt Vương In The Red River Delta, Vietnam, Huong Thi Nguyen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation, the theory of collective memory will be deployed to address many questions regarding retaining, recovering, and re-creating the worship of King Triệu Việt Vương. He was a legendary, historical king of Vietnam who supposedly lived in the 6th century. His achievements were connected to the people living in the Red River Delta in their fight against the Liang invasion. The villagers who lived near or in this area also honored him for his spiritual power. They built a small temple/ shrine right by the riverbank to worship this King. The Vietnamese dynasties, Ly (in the 11th century), …

Exploring The Experiences And Needs Of Chinese Older Adults And Their Family Caregivers, Yu Huang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This multi-generational research project represents an academic partnership between Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Chung Wah Community Care (CWCC), conducted from February to August 2025. Through CWCC's established community participation programs, this collaboration provided both a rich platform for community engagement and an accessible entry point for an ECU Research Internship to collect and analyse in-depth data on the "homing" experiences of Chinese elderly immigrants in Australia.

The study employed a mixed-methods design, engaging 162 survey participants and 15 interview participants across CWCC's two service locations (Balcatta Hub and Willetton Hub) and one well-aged group of name as Evergreen College. …