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Faith In Small Things: The Rlds Church, The New Left, And The Global 1970s, David J. Howlett

Religion: Faculty Publications

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Interdependence And Identity: Moral Relation In An Historical World, Bennett B. Gilbert

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

The twin concepts in the title will be introduced in the contexts of the philosophy of history and of philosophical personalism, as distinct from (though related to) their uses as logical and metaphysical categories. Overviews of varieties of philosophy of history and of basic principles I employ are foundations of the argument. Concepts, or ideas, in general have, I argue, real existence through the way that personal agents use them in creating the histories of human relations. I introduce a Personalist account, which has a more thoroughly diachronic character. Further remarks on the power of ideas to create relations expands …

Wiring Attachment, Alexander K. Bacon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis began with a question: can diagrams create understanding, or only reflect it? Through paintings that layer automotive wiring schematics with family photographs, I explore how the human attachment system resists easy mapping. Using digital tools like Photoshop and scanning, alongside analog methods such as papier-collé and photo transfer, I examine how systems built for clarity—like wiring diagrams—contrast with the layered, often messy realities of human relationships. Drawing from attachment theory’s empirical foundation, rather than the metaphorical leanings of psychoanalysis, my work investigates how emotional bonds form, falter, and repair over time. Material loss and layering are not flaws, …

Healing Through Art: An Exploration Of Art History Influences On Contemporary Art Therapy For Practices In Oncology Care, Nicole Van

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Art therapy has emerged as a vital practice in oncology, offering patients a means of emotional expression and healing during their treatment journey. This project will explore how integrating art history into therapeutic settings, particularly through virtual classes, enhances the emotional well-being of cancer patients. By examining the impact of engaging with historical artworks, this research aims to illustrate how these artistic narratives can facilitate self-consciousness and foster flexibility in individuals facing significant health challenges. Research indicates that exposure to art can evoke emotion and promote psychological healing, serving as a therapeutic outlet for patients. This study will synthesize therapeutic …

The Swiping Desire: Intimacy, Libidinal Capitalism, And The Digital Subject In The Tinder Swindler, Chanif Ainun Naim

Masyarakat: Jurnal Sosiologi

This article examines how dating applications operate as libidinal infrastructures that restructure and commodify intimacy within platform capitalism, using The Tinder Swindler as a cultural case study. Employing a visual-narrative approach within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, the film is analyzed to reveal the structural exploitation of user affect and desire. Grounded in Lacanian psychoanalysis and Baudrillard’s simulation theory, the study argues that these platforms capitalize on the subject’s ontological lack (manque) which fuels desire as the desire for the Other’s desire. This psychic lack sustains a perpetual pursuit of recognition that can never be fulfilled. The swindler’s hyper-curated …

Threading The Needle: Chinese American Adoptees And The In-Between, Annalee Johnson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Threading the Needle is a short documentary that investigates the relationships between Chinese American adoptees, their families, and their heritage. The film features two primary participants, Mia Nails and Annalee “AJ” Johnson as they reflect on their Asian American identity, experiences with racism, and their struggles with cultural estrangement. The similarities and differences in their perspectives shed light on both the wonderful and the heartbreaking circumstances of adoption. The contemporary value of the film lies in how it challenges popular representations of the Asian American experience: Though in recent years, Asian American media has become more present in popular culture, …

“Some Small Kiss From Your Sweet Lips”: Navigating Hierarchy In Eastern Roman Letters, Nicholas Elijah Raffington

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The presence of homoeroticism in the letters of elite Byzantine men was both the product of long-term literary developments and was employed for many purposes. As a medieval society which saw a unique level of social mobility, an individual’s connections and how they managed and negotiated them within the competitive elite milieu was of utmost importance to their relevance. Letters naturally emerge as a suitable literary genre to affirm and recognize relationships, to ask for favors, or introduce a new member to the group. As the evidence suggests, homoeroticism was employed within the male-centered world of business and politics as …

Plantation Matters: The Black Production Of Space In Southeastern Louisiana, 1830 To 1912, Noura Jabir

Pomona Senior Theses

Taking one Louisiana sugar plantation as a starting place, I demonstrate how African-descended laborers created life-sustaining spaces within/beyond the death-driving plantation complex during and after slavery.

“Regression To The Mean”: The Confluence Of Eugenics And Statistics In The 19th And 20th Centuries, Emrys G. King

Pomona Senior Theses

The work of this thesis is twofold — first, qualitatively characterizing the confluence between the British eugenics and statistics movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and second, quantitatively analyzing the effect of this foundation on pedagogical materials in the growing field of statistics between 1880 and 1970. Towards the first goal, the history of the method of least squares, state statistics, and positive and negative eugenics are outlined, followed by a close reading of the foundational texts authored by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson that introduced linear regression. Towards the latter goal, English-language statistics textbooks published between …

Leadership And Management In Action Program (L-Map) Supplement: Case Studies For Humanities And Social Sciences, Giovanna Bonadonna Ph.D., Kevin Kadowaki Ph.D., A. Patricia Mendoza Ph.D., Matthew Thompson Ph.D., Shirl Yang Ph.D.

Office of Postdoctoral Affairs

The Leadership and Management in Action Program (L-MAP) Workbook and Facilitator Guide are authored by Erin Heckler, Ph.D., Jessica A. Hutchins, Ph.D., Molly Grisham, M.A., and Elizabeth Luckman, Ph.D., M.B.A. The L-MAP Project was supported by a Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) Career Guidance for Trainees grant to Washington University in St. Louis, 2019-2021 (co-principal investigators: Erin Heckler, Ph.D., and Jessica Hutchins, Ph.D.).

This Supplement does not (nor does it intend to) replace the L-MAP curriculum. The case studies in this document are designed to accompany the theory in the L-MAP curriculum applying it to discipline-specific situations in the humanities and …

The Tyrant King Of The Auction House: The Disastrous “Fine Artification” Of The Dinosaur, Amelia C. Kolstad

Anthós

This article examines how fine art auctioneers market dinosaur fossils as art pieces to wealthy collectors, depriving the paleontological field of specimens for scientific research. Drawing from recent examples of fossils sold at fine art auctions, this article notes how rising auction prices for specimens as ‘art’ prevent museums and research institutions from acquiring specimens for research and restoration. Kolstad concludes that the art auction houses’ marketing of fossils as art is detrimental to paleontological research. To protect fossils and their scientific value, Kolstad proposes alternatives, such as selling replicas to collectors and highlighting the importance of original specimens for …

Hegel Meets The Corleones: Critical Racket Theory And The American Crime Family, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay interrogates Frankfurt School “racket theory.” While sympathetic to its claim that the most pervasive form of hegemony is the hierarchical and authoritarian group, the paper explores the School’s apparent blind spot in underestimating the crime family’s resurgent significance (e.g., the Trumps or culture industry sagas from The Godfather to Ozark). Early racket theory was limited by Horkheimer’s intensified version of Hegel’s concept of the modern family, its nuclear form and early dissolution. A brief genealogy of the US crime film—from early 1930s individual rogue gangsters to the present—confirms the need to rethink this aspect of racket theory.

Author Bios, Author Bios

Intertidal

Intertidal Vol. 3 Author Bios

Who Owns The Dead: The Unequal Access To Repatriation In Us Law, Sydney Blum

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

The Transformative Power Of An Ethic Of Care In Patricia Piccinini’S Mythic Posthuman Offspring, Keely Parrish

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the contemporary artist Patricia Piccinini and her posthuman hybrid creations within the context of a feminist ethic of care. Largely referring to scholarship by the political scientist Joan C. Tronto, I argue that Piccinini expands the definition of an ethic of care to include non-human entities as well as human ones. The four phases of care identified by Tronto will serve to outline the encounter between the audience and Piccinini’s work to see how humans and non-humans (1) care about, (2) take care of, (3) give care and (4) receive care from each other, as well as …

Living By The Sword: Religiosity And The Terrorist Subculture Of Russian Revolutionaries, 1904-1910, Gregory I. Mcevoy

Dissertations and Theses

The Marxist dictum of “religion is the opiate of the masses” has led to a prevailing assumption in scholarship that the socialist movements of the early twentieth century have been inherently atheistic. Religion is often associated as a remnant of old, antiquated society and incompatible with the claimed modernity of socialist progress. This assumption has led to overlooking the religiosity within certain radical movements and revolutionary culture at large. Scholarship on the political underground in Tsarist Russia has, thus far, perpetuated this impression. While it is the true that the Bolsheviks and Leninist Social Democrats rejected religion as obscurantist and …

We Are All Mestiz(Ç)Os: An Exploration And Deconstruction Of The Myth Of Mestizaje/Mestiçagem In Mexico And Brazil, Michelle Garcia

CMC Senior Theses

Different from the United States, racial-mixing was permissible in Latin America throughout its history. Furthermore, race-mixing has been cemented into the national identities of LatAm states through Mestizaje, thus painting these states as racial democracies. This thesis examines the construction and maintenance of Mestizaje as a myth and sign for racial democracies as well as the racial disconnect created within those in “Mestizo” nations. This thesis contributes to existing literature by utilizing Mexico and Brazil due to their different socio-historical contexts. They will serve as case studies to evaluate the mechanisms that allow this myth to persevere. First, I will …

Wearing Our Values On Our Sleeves: The Intersection Of Fashion Leadership, Values, And Sustainability, Cayman Chen

CMC Senior Theses

Fashion leaders are social leaders who derive their power from what they wear and how they influence others. There are three types: 1) fashion innovators, who are early adopters of trends, 2) fashion opinion leaders, who legitimize new styles and influence others, and 3) innovative communicators, who exhibit the behaviors of both fashion innovators and fashion opinion leaders. This study investigates motivational differences between different fashion leaders through their values. We then investigate how fashion leadership and value-based advertising appeal predicts intention to purchase sustainable fashion products. 213 student participants were administered the Portrait Values Questionnaire, the …

Invisible No More: Looking And Listening Locally To Build Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Resilience, Anjali Thakore

CMC Senior Theses

The ubiquity of sexual violence, with its devastating physical and psychological consequences, has rendered conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) one of the most effective and enduring “invisible crimes” of war. Despite receiving growing attention across academic, political, and activist circles, wartime sexual violence remains pervasive in contemporary conflict zones. Against the backdrop of these frequent and recurring violations, this thesis explores the dissonance between high-level rhetorical commitments to preventing and punishing CRSV and on-the-ground realities. What soon emerges is a troubling pattern in which gendered violence—and women’s lived experiences more generally—while increasingly visible in theory, remains marginalised in practice. By investigating …

Faltered States: The Rise, Fall, And Containment Of Psychedelic Science In The United States, Baxter Brew

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis traces the history of psychedelic science in the United States and its implications for policymaking. In the postwar period, psychedelic researchers were enabled by a unique convergence of optimism in medical science and structural flexibility. But their hope blinded them to the deeper tensions of their field. As institutions grew increasingly rigid and risk-averse, the space for psychedelics began to close. Some scientists responded by fortifying the walls around them, developing socially and professionally acceptable research methods. Others tried to escape these walls entirely. But neither approach could prevent psychedelics from being squeezed out of formal inquiry. Yet …

The Inextricable Link Between Gendered Security And State Stability: Strategic Costs Of U.S. Humanitarian Retrenchment, Kirby Eh Kimball

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the strategic consequences of the 2025 U.S. foreign aid freeze on gendered security in conflict-affected states, focusing on Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine. It argues that gendered security—the protection, empowerment, and rights of women and girls—is not a peripheral humanitarian concern but a foundational determinant of state stability, development, and democratic resilience. Through a qualitative comparative case study methodology, the research synthesizes empirical literature, United Nations reports, human rights documentation, and cross-national statistical analyses to demonstrate how the collapse of gender-focused humanitarian programs following the aid freeze will critically exacerbate conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), weaken state institutions, and …

The Impact Of Teaching Students Stress And Trauma Alleviation Techniques For Coping With Distressing Materials In First-Year Composition, Faye Monique Scott

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Trauma can impact the way a student learns and focuses. In higher education, without instructors realizing it, classes may retraumatize or trigger students with the texts, media, or materials utilized. Research suggests that little attention is given to helping students deal with potentially traumatizing course materials and students inside the classrooms may be impacted by trauma whether the teacher is aware or not. This dissertation examined the effects of teaching students specific coping strategies—Trigger Warnings (TWs) and Stress and Trauma Alleviation Techniques (STATs) —while reading, writing, and reflecting on possibly distressing materials in First-Year Composition courses through a mixed methods …

Bytes, Banter, And The Bible: An Interdisciplinary Account Of Objective Meaning, Cameron Bonin

Senior Honors Theses

The claim that the Bible has objective meaning is contested in a postmodern world. This claim can be more persuasively defended when it is addressed by insights from multiple disciplines. In particular, the field of computer science is apt to illuminate the concept of meaning through its reflection on the nature of languages and its concern with the accurate transmission of information. By synthesizing insights from the field of computer science, such as that of Claude Shannon, with Nicholas Wolterstorff’s use of speech-act theory, the concept of meaning can be understood more clearly. Consequently, this synthesis assists in answering questions …

Slaying The Windigo: Fear And Faith In The Anthropocene, Daniel J. Irwin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines the changing affect of fear in the environment and how it is influencing writing in the Anthropocene. Chapter one lays the groundwork for the present moment of ecocriticism, examining how the relationship with the environment has changed throughout the history of ecocritical writing. The second chapter examines how fear has been an intrinsic element of environmental storytelling, starting with the romantic ideas of the sublime. With the recognition of the impact that humanity has had on Earth over the past several centuries, and the accelerating acceptance of the idea of the Anthropocene since the turn of the …

Aestheticizing And Engendering Disease: The Case Of Tuberculosis, Abigail Dollries

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis examines how tuberculosis, known in the nineteenth century as “consumption,” was aestheticized in American cultural and medical discourse, particularly in industrial cities of the North between 1830 and 1850. It addresses the paradox at the heart of the disease’s representation: while tuberculosis was medically pathologized, it was simultaneously romanticized, especially when afflicting elite white women. The central problem explored is how this aestheticization of illness functioned to reinforce gender, class, and racial hierarchies by transforming suffering into a symbol of virtue, refinement, and social status. Using a cultural-historical methodology, this project analyzes a range of sources, including medical …

How To Be A Nature Detective (1966) By Millicent E. Selsam, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Picture Books

Coming up with the most reasonable explanation of the available clues is something we all do on a daily basis. This book describes animal tracks as clues from which children can make inferences about what kind of animal left them and what they were doing when they did.

Nurturing Religious Education Using Artificial Intelligence, Matt Gardner

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This essay focuses on helping teachers, parents, and students understand and become familiar with artificial intelligence (AI)—specifically, its capabilities and how it will affect our homes and classrooms. In doing so, teachers, parents, students, and children will learn to use certain gospel-approved principles to most successfully use and operate these new technologies to bless the lives of God’s children.

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Islam, Memory, And Denial: Preserving Bosniak Identity After The Srebrenica Genocide, Alek Barović

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The role of the Bosniak Islamic Community in preserving identity and collective memory of the Srebrenica genocide remains a subject of ongoing debate among Bosniaks in Bosnia, the wider Balkan region, and the diaspora. This paper explores how Bosniaks perceive the Islamic Community’s efforts in shaping and sustaining post-genocide identity through religious, cultural, and educational initiatives. By analyzing narratives from survivors, religious leaders, and community members, this study investigates whether the Islamic Community is seen as a central institution in the preservation of historical memory or as one actor among many in the broader struggle against denial and historical revisionism. …