Digital Commons Network^™

Critical Modding: A Design Framework For Exploring Representation In Games, Kenton Howard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In this project, I created a framework for exploring problems with representations of marginalized characters in video games called "critical modding." The main goal of this project was to provide a method for addressing issues with portrayals of queer characters in video games through modification of a game's narrative and gameplay systems. I also created a video game prototype called Life in the Megapocalypse as a digital tool for engaging in critical modding. In addition, I created classroom assignments based on the game prototype aimed at helping people learn more about problems with portrayals of queer characters in games through …

Pushing Against Patriarchy: Indonesian Muslim Women Using Islam As A Form Of Resistance, Ariana Siddiqui-Dennis

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

Seldom has Islam been understood in mainstream discourse as a means of achieving gender equality and resisting patriarchal powers. However, Indonesian Muslim women organizers did just that. This project analyzes how patriarchal culture, colonialism, the state, and religious powers have shaped current gender norms regarding women in the public and private sphere since the twentieth century. Centering how Javanese Muslim women have used Islam to resist patriarchal authorities, I analyze sociological, historical, and gender and sexuality studies. This project challenges conservative interpretations of Islam used within Muslim communities to limit women’s rights, and challenges Islamophobic misconceptions that frame the religion …

Memories Of The Algerian War: A Historiography From Independence To The Present, Melissa Rosenthal

History - Master of Arts in Teaching

I. Synthesis Essay………………………………..1

II. Primary Documents and Headnotes………...19

III. Textbook Critique……………………………...41

IV. New Textbook Entry…………………………..44

V. Bibliography………………………………….....47

Only With Thine Eyes, Morgan Mcivor Bowser

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Ic025: Marianne Marcus, Transcript, University Of Texas Health Science Center At Houston. School Of Nursing

Cizik School of Nursing 50th Anniversary

Transcript of the oral history interview with Marianne Marcus. See more at University of Texas School of Nursing records and its finding aid.

Embedding Anti-Racism In The Community Development And Youth Work Programme (Cdyw) 2020/2021, Mairead Cluskey, Brid Ni Chonaill Dr, Georgina Lawlor, Sheila Coyle, Liam Mcglynn Dr, Garreth Smith

Group Reports

The Community Development and Youth Work (CDYW) programme team received funding from the IMPACT project as part of the Le Chéile award application during the academic year 2020/2021. The overall aim of the CDYW Le Chéile journey was to embed anti-racism in the teaching, learning and assessment of the programme. Changes were introduced to modules in terms of new content, students were exposed to different perspectives and voices, and new workshops were designed for placement preparation around identifying and responding to racism. With regard to assessment, case studies were used to develop responses to the lived experiences of racism in …

A Multispecies Perspective Into Dietary Genetic Adaptations And Ancient Migration In The Peruvian Andes, Kelsey Jorgensen

Wayne State University Dissertations

Successful adaptation to the high-elevation Andes would have required both cultural and biological adaptations by early human populations. These past adaptations continue to shape the evolutionary outcomes of both humans and non-human species today. A multispecies perspective was used to examine how humans and non-human creatures, specifically insects, were shaped by past human adaptations. This dissertation asked two primary questions: 1) Given the importance and evolutionary history of potato consumption in the Peruvian Andes, is a genetic adaptation to better digest potato starch detectable in present-day Peruvians? and 2) Using the Andean Potato Weevil (APW) phylogeny as a proxy, what …

A Tale Of Two Trans Men: Transmasculine Identity And Trauma In Two Fairy-Tale Retellings, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Transgender identities in fairy tale retellings are rare, but can reveal much about gender fluidity. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel Boy, Snow, Bird conflates transgender identities with mirrored falsehoods and fairytale spells, pathologizing a trauma victim who turns out to also become an abuser, while Gabriel Vidrine’s novella “A Pair of Raven Wings” depicts a queer transgender man with dignity, making it clear that the trauma he suffers is at the hands of bigots rather than being an invention of a sick mind or the cause of his transition. Pairing these fairy-tale retellings illuminates the topic of gender fluidity in fairy tales …

Mothers Behind Cameras: Mother-Artist, Mother-Child Dyads In Sally Mann’S Immediate Family And Elinor Carucci’S Mother, Hayley A. Pierpont

Scripps Senior Theses

Women, particularly mothers, are often made invisible within narratives of their own family and domestic spaces, despite their role as creators and maintainers of those spaces. This perpetuation of invisibility is threaded throughout the history of artistic practices, (photography especially). Contemporary mother-artists Sally Mann and Elinor Carucci confront and unapologetically reflect their singular experience(s) with motherhood through their photography, which addresses the symbiotic dyads of mother-child and mother-artist. This thesis focuses on an analysis of four images: Mann’s The Wet Bed and Lee’s Dirty Hands, and Carucci’s Trying to Protect Emanuelle and I Will Protect You. In both …

The Intersection Between Black Hair And The Environment: Hair As A Site For Environmental Justice And Sustainability, Dafina Matiku

Scripps Senior Theses

Currently, we are facing several global crises that include but are not limited to climate change, food insecurity, pollution of the body and environment, as well as racial, gender, and class inequities. This thesis seeks to understand how the natural hair movement, which strives to omit toxic chemicals while embracing textured hair, can be a tool of reconnecting to nature. As humans we are intrinsically part of ecosystems and nature, we must find our niche in it instead of occupying and destroying our environment entirely. The methodology includes compiling a small array of experiences that show the nuance of hair …

The Day I Left, Nidaa Aljabbarin

Intertext

No abstract provided.

Systemic Inequalities For Afro-Brazilians, Teya De Oliveira

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Brazil is commonly viewed as a racial paradise on the world front due to its highly mixed-race population. Compared to the United States and South Africa, race-based discriminatory laws and racially motivated violence in Brazil have been absent. Despite these factors, African descendants in Brazil have been at a socioeconomic disadvantage since the nation's birth. Brazilian anthropologist Gilberto Freyre put forth the racial democracy ideology, stating that anyone can ascend the socioeconomic ladder no matter their race. This thesis opposes the racial democracy theory by exposing the various aspects in which Afro-Brazilians are systemically oppressed. In education, jobs & wages, …

The Lived Experience Of Chronic Pain: On The Contributions Of Phenomenology In Understanding Chronic Pain Disorders, Riley C. Smith

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Chronic pain disorders are estimated to affect a significant proportion of the global population. These disorders are often debilitating and pose a substantial challenge to the everyday life of those affected. Modern medicine has made great strides in understanding the physiological processes involved in chronic pain. However, chronic pain is more than merely a physiological process. Chronic pain is an embodied mode of being-in-the-world that manifests in multiple aspects of lived experience, from the ability to perform day-to-day tasks to the relationship between body and self. Consequently, it is essential to cultivate a rich appreciation of chronic pain as a …

Authoring Health Literacy In The Everyday, Sarah Rumsey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

My experiences with healthcare providers, which pervade my earliest childhood memories, motivated me to become autonomous in managing my health and wellness. This autoethnographic research explores the literacy activities embedded in everyday lived experiences that informed the process of lamination in composing health literacy which influenced health practices and outcomes. By tracing textual trajectories and examining the process of chronotopic lamination to compose my health literacy across everyday literacy activities this autoethnographic thesis project highlights how nonmedically trained persons can use official and nonofficial sources to create a social and culturally contextualized health literacy. This research calls for recognition of …

Fight Or Flight: The Biology Of An Anxiety Attack, Alesandra “Sasha” Temerte

Intertext

No abstract provided.

Preservation Of Heritage School Buildings In The Philippines : A Case Study Of The Gabaldon Buildings, Inero Ancho, Mark Ponce San Juan

Journal of Urban Culture Research

This research is an attempt to revisit the Philippines’ Gabaldon school buildings (GSB) in the light of Republic Act 11194. The research offers scrutiny of the law vis-a-vis prospects on practices of preserving and advocating the historical and cultural value of GSB. Using qualitative method of research, this study particularly employs content analysis of RA 11194. The discussion of this paper is clustered into two main sections: The narrative of GSB since its beginning, along with presenting notable details of select edifices which still serving the Philippine education system and an in-depth reading and analysis of RA 11194. It scrutinizes …

Playing Music As A Nursing Intervention To Reduce Distress In Neonatal And Pediatric Acute Care Patients: A Literature Review, Seren E. Özoğlu

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Pediatric and neonatal patients are especially vulnerable to suffering from distress. This literature review identifies research which applies passive music listening to distressed neonatal and pediatric acute care patients. Databases searched to find relevant studies include CINAHL plus with full text, MEDLINE, Alt HealthWatch, APA PsycArticles, and APA PsycInfo from EBSCOhost. Six studies were identified to meet search criteria. The studies that supported music listening with the neonatal and pediatric populations had a positive effect in reducing distress levels. Additional research is warranted to further validate these findings. Music listening with neonatal and pediatric patients is a simple, cost-effective intervention …

Voiced Gender Signifiers Within ‘As One’ A Chamber Opera: Annotated Bibliography, Samuel Sherman

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

‘As One’, a popular modern chamber opera by composer Laura Kaminsky, presents the transition of transgender woman, Hannah. Hannah, however, is casted and composed as two separate voices, a baritone and mezzo-soprano, thus creating “Hannah before” and “Hannah after”. In doing so, a dichotomy of thought surrounding the attributes of a binary based practice of vocalization and character representation is created. Through the analysis of gender theory, voiced gender theory, and the ‘As One’ chamber opera, storytelling of complex gender-based characters may be solidified within biased gender compositional and musical tools. In discovering these repetitive actions through socially constructed stereotypes …

Disrupted Identities And Forced Nomads: A Post-Disaster Legacy Of Neocolonialism In The Island Of Barbuda, Lesser Antilles, Sophia Perdikaris, Rebecca Boger, Edith Gonzalez, Emira Ibrahimpašić, Jennifer D. Adams

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of the forced evacuation of the island of Barbuda due to Hurricane Irma, the Barbudan people have experienced an exile and return to a ‘new’ geographical, political, and economic context, albeit on the same island. With the specter of climate change and the potential impacts on island communities and nations, we use Barbuda, sister island of Antigua in the Lesser Antilles, to examine the trajectory of nomadic identities as they navigate changes that threaten contemporary land relationships and culture. Since its first permanent settlement in the 17th Century, the island geography of Barbuda has been fundamental to …

Machine Ethics, Ethics For Machines: Context-Based Modeling For Machines Making Ethical Decisions, Jaysa Ramirez

Honors Program Theses

Machine ethics is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that focuses on if – and if so, how – machines can make ethical decisions autonomously. Through a close study of two positions on whether or not machines can be moral agents, this project sheds light on a clash of assumptions that is keeping the field of machine ethics in limbo. After making this clash of assumptions clear, I raise two questions which get at the scope of machine ethics itself: 1) What makes ethical decision-making different from other kinds of decision-making? 2) To what extent can machines engage with ethics and make …

Bits Of Wisdom, Ross R. Maxwell

Comparative Civilizations Review

I collected theses thoughts and intuitions, because in one way or another they were meaningful to me.

R.R.M. 12/20/82

Soar: A Holistic Approach To Supporting Survivors, Sabrina Glass

West Chester University Master’s Theses

In this thesis, I address the systemic issue of sexual violence and rape culture that affect students on college campuses at an alarming rate. By utilizing critical action research, I propose the creation of the Department of Survivor Outreach and Response (SOAR), a holistic and collaborative department that focuses on supporting and advocating for survivors of sexual violence while also conducting prevention and education initiatives. I emphasize the importance of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality (1993), encourage the use of the Social Change Model of Leadership (Astin & Astin, 1996), and empathy within leadership. SOAR is designed to ensure sexual …

Disciplining Skepticism Through Kant’S Critique, Fichte’S Idealism, And Hegel’S Negations, Meghant Sudan

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter considers the encounter of skepticism with the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophical enterprise and focuses on the intriguing feature whereby it is assimilated into this enterprise. In this period, skepticism becomes interchangeable with its other, which helps understand the proliferation of many kinds of views under its name and which forms the background for transforming skepticism into an anonymous, routine practice of raising objections and counter-objections to one’s own view. German philosophers of this era counterpose skepticism to dogmatism and criticism, ancient to modern skepticism, and, importantly, conceptualize the transitions from one form to another, which forms the conceptual …

Gardening The Gilded Age: Creating The Landscape Of The Future, Jackie L. Perkins

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The Gilded Age was a time of rapid change in the United States' history. In contrast to the extensive literature regarding wilderness and the founding of environmental organizations during the period, relatively little has been written about the gardens of private residences and the impact these gardens have had on today's environment. These gardens, and the individuals who designed and provided for them, were at the forefront of the introduction of many new and exotic plants to the American landscape. This thesis explores two built environments, North Carolina's Biltmore Estate and the Barker Mansion in Indiana, and how these environments …

The Pajama Game, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2021-2022 Season Production

Based on the novel 7 ½,The Pajama Game tells the story of a labor furor over a seven-and-a-half-cent pay raise at a pajama plant that complicates the course of true love for Sid Sorokin, the new factory superintendent, and Babe Williams, the feisty firebrand heading the Union Grievance Committee.

Virality Is Virility: Viral Media, Popularity, And Violence, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

The author takes ethical looks at viral images of black death and other violence wrought by fake media.

A Lean Six Sigma Evaluation And Cost Analysis Of Alabama’S Oral Fluid Roadside Screening And Confirmation Testing Program, Minjee Kim

All ETDs from UAB

In recent years, oral fluid has emerged as a vital biological specimen for driving under the influence of drug (DUI/D) cases among toxicology laboratories. Oral fluid possesses numerous advantages. The collection process is non-invasive, rapid, and simple compared to other traditional biological specimen, such as blood or urine. Due to its simplicity of collection, oral fluid can be collected proximate to the actual time of driving, traffic stop, or crash. Oral fluid as a biological specimen is also able to capture active parent drugs of recent use, especially for drugs that were administered orally. However, because oral fluid testing program …

Examining The Viability Of Native American Stickball As A Comprehensive Indigenous Peace System, Edison Doyle Pearce

All ETDs from UAB

This study examines the viability of Native American stickball as a comprehensive peace system developed for the primary purpose of ameliorating hostilities, preventing war, and creating a landscape of peace. Originating as early as the 12th century, Native American stickball is recognized as the oldest field sport in North America. More than a game, stickball is steeped in symbolism and comprised of rich oral histories, elements of fictive kinship alliances, religious connotations, and other prosocial mechanisms designed to create and maintain peace. To determine how the interplay between these various components is adaptive through time, a three-phase research model was …

Sialylation As A Novel Mechanism Of Radiation Resistance In Rectal Cancer, Mary Smithson

All ETDs from UAB

Locally advanced rectal cancer is treated with chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery. Most patients do not have a complete response to chemoradiotherapy, and the resistance mechanisms are poorly understood. We investigated the role of ST6GAL-1 in therapeutic resistance. ST6GAL-1 is a sialytransferase that adds the negatively charged sugar, sialic acid (Sia), to cell surface proteins in the Golgi altering their function. We hypothesized that ST6GAL-1 mediates resistance to chemoradiation in rectal cancer by inhibiting apoptosis. Patient derived xenograft (PDX) and organoid models of rectal cancer as well as rectal cancer cell lines SW837 and SW620 were assessed for ST6GAL-1 protein with …

Disparities, Telemedicine, And Covid-19: Rhetorical Approaches To Health And Medicine For Positive Behavior Change In Older African American Women, Audrey S. Wrenn

All ETDs from UAB

Overlapping exigencies experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the need for adaptable and flexible public health responses that include cultural perspectives and lived experiences of specific groups. The rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 has proven to be multifocal because of the social and environmental experiences occurring simultaneously. Americans experienced periods of civil unrest, unequitable health care, overall lifestyle changes, and an immediate shift to telehealth use as the pandemic unfolded. This research examines telehealth engagement during the pandemic among African American (AA) women ages 75 and older to indicate the benefits and challenges to patient care in a virtual environment and from …