Digital Commons Network^™

Searching For The Hyperobject: Crystals As Transscalar Vehicles, Jay Costello

Masters Theses

When I touch the street outside my house, I'm touching Los Angeles—a contiguous vector of material bisecting a continent. A slab, a stone, dust and oil, a googolplex of tightly packed anisotropic particles... At nightfall, I sneak to the edge of the highway and break off a piece. 'What does it mean for a worm to be aware of the scale of the planet?' Bruno Latour's evocative questioning of scalar jumps prompts an existentialism that places me somewhere between the hyperlocal and the massively distributed. Like a cosmic traveler floating through the universe, I feel adrift. I look around, grasping …

Memory And Experiential Lab, Yufan Xu

Masters Theses

In the tapestry of our lives, there exist moments and places that we can never revisit, scenes etched into our memories that fade with the passage of time. These experiences and memories are treasures, provide us with an anchor to our past. Unfortunately, many of these moments are like fireflies in the night, here one moment and gone the next. Yet, they remain invaluable, forever etched in our hearts and minds. I wonder if it is possible to trigger cherished past experiences and memories in our daily lives, allowing individuals to re-experience similar moments, thereby nourishing the spiritual world. Therefore, …

Untitled, Lucia Steele

Masters Theses

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Homeward Bound: Moving Homes, Moving Home, Ella Nadeau

Masters Theses

The built environment has a powerful way of showing where our human attention and care is, a magic trick of emphasis and deemphasis. We proudly display our assets, wrapping them in light and gold while we shun the background people and places, choosing ubiquitous skins of plastic or brick in an effort to remove them from our visual language. Since we have had people we have had spaces to place them in but where some spaces relay the message that the person inside is a gift to the world, the majority chant a tired monotony of oppressive apathy: you do …

Furnicreature, Yijing Huang

Masters Theses

Project "Furnicreature" reimagines domestic furniture and furnishing as unique 'creatures' with anthropomorphic features such as 'facial' expressions, 'body' gestures, dynamic movements, as well as distinct personalities, to foster interactive experiences. By blending the inanimate with the animate and adding humor into the approach, the 'Furnicreature' project not only cultivates mindfulness, empathy, and care towards possessions but also promotes humility and responsibility. Its storytelling and dynamic design inspire imagination and prompt reflection on oneself, surroundings, and relationships. With sustainability as a long-term goal, Furnicreature aims to encourage a departure from everyday challenges and foster a more mindful and empathetic engagement with …

Asili, Husna Abubakar

Masters Theses

ASILI is a Swahili word meaning ORIGIN, SOURCE, and ESSENCE. It can also mean the fundamental principal of a culture. It is not cognitive, it is metaphysical.

The work that I do explores the preconceptual, prespatial and pretemporal organization of culture, specifically African culture and even more specifically, Swahili culture.

I use multiple techniques to interpolate a visual voice to an othered people both continental and abroad. I explore the mythoform that connects the mystical and dive into what of it that becomes a practice within Swahili culture. I take experience from my life as a Swahili woman, from the …

Variations On Noise, Clinton Van Arnam

Masters Theses

Variations on Noise is a three-part collection: an index, a set of interviews, and a perspective on a working practice in graphic design and sound.

If noise is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, how do we define it and use it as a catalyst for dissonance and change? As a designer, I use noise algorithms to generate pseudo randomness and break up repetitive textures. As a musician, I use noise to create scores and performances that challenge our perception of what is comfortable and uncomfortable.

Seven interviews with designers, artists, musicians, and a Tibetan monk offer ways to approach the …

Sircling The Cquare, Latika Balachander

Masters Theses

As we journey into an increasingly virtual and intangible reality, is there an opportunity for our tactile fabrics to journey with, and even reorient us? Can they exist in our future worlds to remind us of the value of current traditional, low-tech practices that we may soon forget?

Referencing the fundamental fabric languages of knitted and woven structures, this collection of garments, that I term “Earthsuits,” embody the stages of metamorphosis as we adjust to a new phase of our perceptive reality. With an emphasis on circling, we loop through virtual squares like screens and pixels, to the circles of …

From One Nature To Another, Sarah Mann

Masters Theses

Lichen‭, ‬fungi‭, ‬and soil each represent a microcosm of nature‭. ‬They are all quintessential examples of complex symbiosis‭, ‬yet they are often treated as lifeless materials‭. ‬But what if we took a moment to connect with each one on a daily basis‭ - ‬would that impact the way we envision the future‭? ‬

For most of us‭, ‬our homes won’t be radically changing any time soon‭; ‬therefore‭, ‬From One Nature to‭ ‬Another‭ ‬invites us to bring these entities inside and‭ ‬reflect on their possibilities as collaborators‭. ‬Each piece was carefully researched and designed to‭ ‬provide the correct atmospheric …

While We Were At Dinner, Anna Glass

Masters Theses

Mealtime is globally recognized as a time to gather, as food catalyzes connection. This project delves into this human practice of commensality and both explores and emphasizes the significance of communal eating and its benefits through designed objects. Through a collection of six designed dining experiments, this study examines the role of novel tabletop objects and unusually curated meal environments. The way these experiments are designed highlights how communal mealtime experiences can be used as tools for social engagement and disruptors of cultural norms.

Furniture and tableware designs have the power to challenge the assumed arrangement of traditional mealtime rituals, …

Replication And Growth In Cassava Cultivation And Uxorilocal Women’S Relations Among The Waiwai: A Mother's Reckoning With Death And Social Change, Laura H. Mentore

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Through an ethnographic examination of the shared capacities of cassava and womanhood for what I term growth and replication, I argue that Waiwai sociality seeks to curtail the trajectory of life towards finite death through the intervening act of cutting and replanting or replicating life in a vegetatively inspired form of the “episodic present” (Strathern 2021). An extended vignette demonstrates how these features of Waiwai sociality take shape in mother-daughter and sister relations at the core of uxorilocal residential living, and in a senior woman’s reckonings with illness, death, and social change.

“The Hero Of My Own Life”: The Purpose Of The Fictional Self In The Life Writings Of Mary Wollstonecraft And Charles Dickens, Jessica M. Day

Honors Projects

This paper looks at Letters written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens as significant texts that combine fiction and life writing. Looking at fictional and autobiographical elements within each text, this paper argues that these authors manipulate genre to make significant claims about feminism and child activism. They participate in self-crafting—taking the self, something that is personal, and making it public and political. This paper argues that fiction allows the life writer to expand past the limitations of a single lifetime and speak to truths larger than the self. Letters written …

Downfall To Friendliness?: Analyzing Common Tropes In The Boy Who Loved Too Much, Heather Paglia

The Criterion

One of the most commonly held misconceptions regarding the disabled population is that living with any disability automatically decreases the quality of life. It is assumed that any deviation from society’s established norm for the perfect brain and body must be a burden. Both the physical and social implications associated with disability have forged in the minds of many the idea that a disabled life could not possibly be a good life. This overarching negativity, however, is turned on its head when considering Williams Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder more accurately described as happy syndrome. This so-called disability is not …

Moving “Passed” Life For Death, Gwyneth Morrissey

The Criterion

The paper Moving “Passed” Life for Death explores Emily Dickinson's poem #479, "Because I could not stop for Death," focusing on the theme of movement expressed through the word "passed." It analyzes the contradictory qualities of movement and stopping and how they interplay. At the same time, it looks into how the poem's periodic stopping points highlight the natural cycle of life and death, challenging the conventional and fearful understanding of dying. Dickinson's use of "passed" ultimately alludes to the persistence of life after death, altering readers' perceptions of mortality. The essay presents an intriguing interpretation of life, death, and …

Historicising Domestic Terrorism And Boko Haram Insurgency In The North East, Nigeria: Issues And Trends, Adesola Sa Adesote, Adekunle Sunday Akande, John Ojo Abimbola

Journal of Terrorism Studies

Since the return to civil rule in 1999, Nigeria has been battling with series of violent agitations from various geo-political zones in the country. These violent agitations which have taken terror dimensions have contributed to national security threat. Terrorists’ attacks have resulted in the killings of hundreds of people and wanton destruction of property that worth billions of naira through bombings. The major thrust of this paper is to investigate the challenge of domestic terrorism with major emphasis on the activities of the dreaded militant Islamic sect, popularly known as Boko Haram since 2009. The paper argues that most of …

Exploring The Gap Between Self-Assessed And Actual Language Proficiency: A Comparative Analysis Of Japanese And Romance Language Learners, Megan Scarlet Keys

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores self-assessment accuracy among Japanese second language (L2) learners compared to learners of Romance languages. This research aims to investigate the extent of accuracy in self-assessment among Japanese learners and compare it with their counterparts studying Romance languages. Additionally, the study explores the variables influencing the accuracy of self-assessment in this context. The participants in this study comprised 144 undergraduate students enrolled in Japanese, French, Spanish, or Portuguese courses at Brigham Young University. Most participants possessed practical experience using their L2 in the target cultural context, complementing their academic coursework. The Language Ability Self-Evaluation Resource (LASER) was utilized …

I’M Conscious Of Time: Pinhole Vignettes Of Human Co-Existence In The Anthropocene, Jennie Moran

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper explores the practice of hospitality in the context of human-induced climate change. In this new and uncertain geological era, we will be required to re-examine our reciprocity with the earth and our fellow humans. We have over-farmed and over-extracted. Our voraciousness has left the soil close to exhaustion with concerns expressed that we have a finite number of harvests left. We have more mouths to feed than ever, villages are drowning under rising seas and our activities have initiated a mass extinction of the species with whom we share the earth. The grief surrounding this crisis is complex …

Sedimented For The Future: Can Technology Sustain Tradition?, Nihal Bursa

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Turkish coffee is unique in its brewing technique and deeply rooted in the culture developed throughout the Ottoman geography since the sixteenth century. The knowledge, skills and rituals of Turkish coffee are transmitted to new generations through observation, participation and practicing. Be it an elaborate ritual at the Ottoman court or a modest peasant pleasure, Turkish coffee requires dedicated time, manual skills and decorum. The pace of industrialization and urbanization in the twenty-first century forced people to acquire new lifestyles. This has put Turkish coffee service in jeopardy especially in public spaces. Owing to the Turkish coffee machine designed by …

Lost But Not Found: Southern Appalachia, Migration Patterns, And Culinary Tourism, Ashli Q. Stokes, Wendy Atkins-Sayre

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Despite growing acknowledgement of the variety of cultures that developed Southern Appalachia’s cuisine, some popular food writing continues to highlight the so-called insular nature of its food, drink, and culinary festivals. Regional tourists, especially those visiting its Blue Ridge or Smoky mountains, also remain likely to experience a delimited, often problematic Scots-Irish or white-European pioneer past, including when they eat and drink. Billboards advertise the outlaw Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Show, visitors choose from moonshine tastings in dilapidated looking but new distilleries, and diners enjoy gourmet biscuits alongside gravy “flights” at trendy restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina. Appalachian Studies and …

To The Taste Of Ghurba: Diasporic Food And Oral Memories Of Tunisia In Europe, Gabriele Proglio

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

During an oral history research on the larger European open-air market in Turin, called “Porta Palazzo,” Tunisian people replied to my questions using the Tunisian-Arab word ghurba in order to define their condition of being in diaspora. Ghurba is a specific emotion about the condition of separation and estrangement. It is used for describing the situation of being a foreigner, migrant, illegal, invisible in a land away from home. For this reason, it evokes a state of abandonment, loneliness, isolation but also it is used for yearning a reconnection and socialization with an idea of community based on memories of …

‘A Mirror For Fellow-Citizens’: Cicero’S Proto-Transformational Leadership Ideal Of The Rector Rei Publicae, Evan Rw Dutmer

New England Classical Journal

In this article, I situate Cicero’s discussion of the rector rei publicae and orator perfectus in the De republica and De oratore in the context of James MacGregor Burns’s theory of the transformational leadership in his influential 1978 Leadership. I then consider how Cicero’s rector rei publicae would exhibit leadership behaviors of the Full Range Leadership Model, a popular operationalization of transformational leadership theory. Throughout, I also consider the limitations of applying transformational leadership as an interpretive frame for an ancient Roman leader such as Cicero. Cicero’s vision, I contend, can only succeed in being proto-transformational. The result of this …

Achille Mbembe, "Brutalism", Atreyee Majumder

Articles

Book Review: Achille Mbembe, Brutalism (Duke University Press 2024)

Debunking 'Pfeiffer' S Bacillus': Twentieth Century Germ Theory And The 1918 Influenza Epidemic, Conor Tyson

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In the midst of World War I, a scourge swept the world that proved more deadly than any military battle. Between June 1918 and May 1919, three waves of influenza struck in a worldwide pandemic. The origins of this particular influenza strain remain mysterious even today, but it spread so far and fast that only St. Helena in the Atlantic and several south Pacific islands avoided any infection of this flu. The rest of the globe witnessed a deadly killer. Scientists estimate that 50 to 100 million people died from this pandemic, far more deaths than from the five years …

Dgs 2024 Full Programme, Dgs Committee

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This is the Programme for the DGS 2024 - Food and Memory: Traces, Trauma and Tradition, as well as the Map of Producers who furnished the delicious food and drink we serve at lunch over the two days of the event.

Genis, June, Sophia Maier Garcia

Bronx Jewish History Project

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

June Genis lived in the Bronx from the time she was three years old until she left for college in 1963. When he father, who had been a dentist, passed away, Genis and her mother moved to Creston Avenue and 192^nd Street near Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse to be closer to her family. At the time, the area was predominantly Jewish, with some Irish and Italians. They were surrounded by major shopping areas on Fordham and Kingsbridge Roads, and across the street from St. James park where Genis played as a child. Starting in …

Participatory Photography As A Creative And Collaborative Tool In Teaching Peace Education, Rodgen M. Jabor

Peace and Conflict Studies

Peace and education are inseparable. Grounding on the aforementioned premise, peace education has become part of the curriculum in a number of countries including the Philippines. Along with the inclusion of peace education was the challenge of how to provide responsive and meaningful learning experiences in peace education. This article discusses the attempt of the use of participatory photography as a teaching methodology. Ten pre-service teachers participated in a peace education class that trialed the use of participatory photography as a teaching approach guided by a manual that was developed by the researcher. Through conducting a focus group discussion, and …

Consciousness And The Reality Of Monsters In Horror Movies: Dehumanization And What Monsters In Horror Films Say About Us, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay responds to Carroll’s The Nature of Horror from the perspective of transdisciplinary phenomenological film theory, largely developed by Edgar Morin in the 1950s. It argues that Carrolls’s reduction of the phenomenological value of horror films to an unreal category minimizes and even dismisses the inherent value of horror films. Morin, Allan Combs, and others offer more integral and transdisciplinary methods for art interpretation and functionality. They help us understand how monsters in horror films can stand as mirrors and reflections of the monstrous in ourselves and society. Thus, the transformational function and value of film is revealed and …

Du Undergraduate Showcase Abstracts: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, August Alexander, Kevin Summers, E. Paige Lloyd, Alyssa Aragon, Lauren Wols, Erica Larson, Colton Arciniaga, Lily Baeza, Ellie Barnett-Cashman, Sidney Barbier, Maverick Bartholomew, Ryan Bell, Trevor Briggs, Amanda Brown, Cory Marchi, Maddy Pontius, Jennifer Gallagher, Claire Kwok, Channing Bullock, Alex Mccollister, Kim Gorgens, Daniela Chavez, Yamilet Espinoza Nuñez, Giovanni Valladares Giron, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Daniel Cierasynski, Brandon Cohen, Spenser Dobbs, Lindsay Goolsby, Noah Craver, Nyah Cubbison, Liam Doherty, Nicole Doris, Yan Qin, Alexander Nguyen, Lily Harmon, Shubh Todi, Naichen Zhao, Noah Fagello, Stacia Fritz, Paola Gascot-Chinea, Alex Volkova, Janelyn Geronimo, Elsie Harrington, Shane Simmons, Clarice Hise, Laura Moreno Palmer, Henry Xu, Yesu Leela Pasupula, Emily Fisher, Zachary Hogan, Colin Kleckner, Alyssa Knaus, Erin Kubat, Sam Werkema, Katie Lamberton, Lilliya Larson, Allie Leary, Vanessa Leon-Gamez, James H. Gallagher, E. Dale Broder, Robin M. Tinghitella, Emma Loeber, Alina Mali, Ixchel Marquez, Lauren Mcgrath, Ella Matthews, Grace Naegelen, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Rachel Brough, Alexandra Norman, Joe Ontiveros Rodriguez, Ben Dossett, Ori Miller, Janamejay Sharma, Christopher Reardon, Vincent Pandey, Regan Parish, Ren Pratt, Alisha Pravasi, Sanchari Das, Cari Reichel, Emma Robson, Victoria Rockwell, Jayce Rumsey, Steven Said, Norah Schroder, Alaina Smith, Shannon Murphy, Shujan A. Sharafeldeen, Stanley M. Kanai, James T. Nichols, David E. Clouthier, Macalia R. Augustus, Daniel Silva Rios, Scott Simpson, Anna Sparling, Chase Spurbeck, Kimberly Chiew, Christine Stadnik-Poteroba, Jacqueline Stephenson, Evelyn Stovin, Mia Supan, Lauren Tapper, Will Thrush, Anna Vogt, Michaela Walheim, Jon Weber, Hunter Whitehouse, Kansas Wood, Hayley Sayre, Lydia Mccann, Maread Mclaughlin, Kelly Krumrie, Olivia Wuttke

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Abstracts from the DU Undergraduate Research Showcase.

Gender Diversity In The Workplace: Pronouns, Gender-Stereotyped Job Listings, And Perceptions Of Hireability, Elise B. Charette, Sarah E. Nemanick, Paige C. Keim, Sarah M. Ledoux, Lindsay A. Goolsby, E. Paige Lloyd

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Past research has investigated the impact of gender and gender biases on hiring decisions for cisgender individuals. However, there is a lack of research on how perceptions of gender diverse individuals impact hiring decisions. The current work explores how a job applicant’s gender pronouns may impact the likelihood of the applicant getting hired. We also investigated whether this likelihood varied depending on the job description—specifically whether it included content related to gender stereotypes (e.g., “nurturing” versus “leadership capabilities” as a desired trait in job applicants). Ninety-six participants were randomly assigned to view an application package including she/her, he/him, or they/them …

Volume Cxliii, Number 24, May 24, 2024, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.