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Communication & Theater Association Of Minnesota Journal, Volume 49, Issue 1, 2026

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Volume 49, Issue 1 (2026) of the Communication & Theater Association of Minnesota Journal.

Sac Newsletter 2026, South Asia Center

Newsletters from the South Asia Center

No abstract provided.

"Tithing Is An Insurance Premium": A Framing Analysis Of Speaker Innovation And Diachronic Trends In Latter-Day Saint Religious Discourse, Reid Empey

Theses and Dissertations

Religious language relies on shared metaphor and frames that contextualize religious experience and practice. Current approaches to frame semantics (Fillmore 1982) and cognitive metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) lend important insight into religious language, particularly in describing the role that figurative language serves in a religious speech community. However, a vital component of many religious speech communities is the presence of and engagement with a scriptural canon, which often contains metaphorical and framing language that religious speakers can directly reference. Yet, past conceptualizations of speech communities have not accounted for this engagement with a shared canon. To illustrate the role …

Contradiction And Critical Consciousness: Engaging Canadian University Students In Racial Dialogue On Anti-Chinese Racism, Dan Cui

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

This study examines how Canadian university students perceived and engaged with anti-Chinese racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on grounded theory and interviews and written reflections from 28 undergraduates at a predominantly White university, the study analyzes students’ contradictory understandings of racism shaped by media, national narratives, and prior educational experiences. Informed by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, it conceptualizes these tensions as a contradictory racialized habitus, in which awareness and denial, empathy and distancing, coexist. Three themes emerged: contradictory orientations toward anti-Chinese racism, the transnational influence of U.S. political discourse, and the limited transformative impact of a social justice course. …

Experiences Of Psychological Recovery From Work In Second-Generation Asian Americans, Laura Yang

Dissertations and Theses

Individuals of Asian descent make up approximately 7.4% of the U.S. population. As one of the fastest-growing minority groups, their population is projected to reach nearly 15% by 2065, with 38% being foreign-born – surpassing all other racial minority groups. Despite their increasing presence in the U.S. workforce, research on Asian workers' nonwork experiences remains limited. One key unexplored area is how Asian workers engage in recovery after work, considering their unique cultural and racialized experiences. Drawing on literature examining psychological recovery from work, this qualitative study employed multiple methods of analysis, both listening guide method and thematic analysis, to …

Awards For Outstanding Papers Written In 2026

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

African or Middle Eastern History

American Indian Studies Indigenous History Award

Bertis L. and Anna E.C. Embry Award in Global Latter-day Saint History

Cultural History Award

De Lamar and Mary Jensen Award in European History

Eugene E. Campbell Award in Utah History

Family History Award

Fred R. Gowans Award in 19th Century American West History

Faith and Reason Paper Competition

History of Empire Award

History of the Family Award

Latin American History Award

Latino/Latina History Award

Leroy R. Hafen Award in North American History

Mark R. Grandstaff Award in Military History

Sechin Jagchid Award in Non-Western History

Women’s History Award …

Moving Forward, Looking Back: How Mormon Women Sought To Carry Their Polygamous Past Into A Progressive Future Article, Evan Janis

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The influence of woman is fully recognized.” These words, spoken by Emily S. Richards, echoed the shared mission of Utah women at the World’s Congress of Representative Women: to overturn the public perception of them as ignorant, crude, and barbaric. After decades of legal and social campaigns against the so-called “second barbarism” of polygamy, the reputation of Mormon women had been one of its greatest casualties. Cast as too homely to marry a respectable man, too naive to resist deception, and too submissive to think for themselves, the Utah delegation to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair sought to redefine their …

Letters From The Levant: An Astellian Reading, Tanner Stott

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Among the more startling friendships of early 18th-century London’s literary scene is that of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Mary Astell. Their commonalities—remarkable self-education, political activism, and prolific writing—are dwarfed by vast differences of class, politics, and character. Astell, a curiously conservative woman nearly twenty-three years Montagu’s senior, spent her unmarried life squarely in the middle class. Montagu, on the other hand, began her life in England’s loftiest social echelons—the daughter of a Duke, she eloped with untitled Edward only to see him become one of England’s wealthiest men. Montagu lived colorfully with “principles,” according to Lady Irwin, “as corrupt …

“Wak[Ing] Up A Sleeping Giant”: Zions Opinion’S Crusade For Independent Governance And Free Speech At Brigham Young University During The 1968–1969 School Year, Joseph Boysen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

In 1968, university and college students across the United States demanded a larger voice in university governance. Sit-ins, rallies, and demonstrations were common, whether for civil rights, free speech, women’s rights, or against the Vietnam war and the draft. For instance, students took over the office of the President of Columbia University to protest the University’s appropriation of land that might have benefited the Black community. In this context, the students at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, had the chance to consider how they were going to pursue their own calls for change. Although they did not engage in …

Le Roi Shrinks Before La Nation And La Liberté: Feminine Allegories And The King In French Revolutionary Prints, Jared Cluff

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Printers in the early years of the French Revolution faced an unprecedented problem with new, unprecedented legal flexibility. Though the most cohesive government-coordinated efforts to overturn old symbols and refashion France’s national identity would not come until the Republican period, French engravers in the early years of the Revolution found existing Old Regime symbols and visual codes inadequate tools, so sought “a visual formula for [this] unprecedented historical change.” Furthermore, while the National Assembly did not completely do away with the Old Regime censorship systems that it ostensibly abolished with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, printers …

Threads Across The Atlantic: A Dialogue Of Feminist Writings Between Portugal And Cape Verde, Elliana Shillig Venancio

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the feminist literary traditions of Portugal and Cape Verde through a comparative analysis of Ana de Castro Osório’s Infelizes and Dina Salústio’s Mornas eram as noites. Separated by nearly nine decades and an ocean, these two works nonetheless converge in their insistence on women’s autonomy, bodily sovereignty, and resistance to patriarchal structures. Drawing on Hélène Cixous’s theory of écriture féminine and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s framework of intersectionality, this thesis argues that despite the significant differences in time, geography, and socio-political context that separate these authors, powerful threads of feminist consciousness bind their writing together. At the same time, …

Mystical Revelation And Knowledge Of God: Reclaiming Spirituality In Theology Through The Mystics, Elizabeth A. Merski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the scholastic era, the pursuit of God has occurred preeminently through reason, leading to an imbalanced theology of God that persists to the present day in the form of intellect-centered theology. As a resolution, this work proposes that the mobilization of private, mystical revelation as a source of legitimized theological knowledge of God has the potential to close the existent epistemological gap between reason/belief and theology/spirituality, demonstrating the integral unity between authentic knowledge of God and the receiver’s personal acceptance of God in faith. After examining the required methodological components for the discipline of theology and identifying criteria for …

From Theory To Practice: Locating Moral Exemplars In Aristotelian Virtue Ethics, Joseph A. Murray

McNair Summer Research Program

Abstract

This research examines mentorship within Aristotelian virtue ethics. Aristotle holds that moral excellence develops through habituation, guided practice that forms stable dispositions, rather than through knowledge or rules alone. Central to this process are virtuous mentors who model good character and cultivate practical wisdom (phronesis). Although Aristotle stresses the necessity of such examples, he offers little practical guidance on who they are or how they may be identified. This omission raises a practical challenge: if virtue depends on guidance from the genuinely virtuous, identifying those individuals is essential to the theory’s implementation.  My research investigates whether society provides accessible …

What, Exactly, Is Surveillance Pricing?, Kaylina Stroud

McNair Summer Research Program

Surveillance pricing is a method of price discrimination in which firms use personal data to set individualized prices. While this practice is often criticized on grounds of privacy, unfairness, or exploitation, these objections do not fully explain what is morally objectionable about surveillance pricing. This paper examines surveillance pricing through the lenses of price discrimination, market competition, efficiency, exploitation, and deception. I argue that surveillance pricing is not inherently unethical merely because it results in different consumers paying different prices for the same product. Nor is it necessarily objectionable when it promotes mutually beneficial exchanges and efficient market outcomes. The …

The Person As Foundation Of Responsibility: The Insufficiency Of Rights-Based Human Development Approaches, Jaclyn Berg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Building on the plethora of research that demonstrates the way rights language has been more useful for those with wealth and power to further expand capitalist markets, this text extends that criticism to human development programs and institutions. While they claim to be directed towards addressing global issues of poverty and hunger as well as climate crises, they continue to treat the symptoms without accurately diagnosing the disease. Approaches to development that rely on rights without questioning the way rights have been influenced by neoliberal capitalists or without questioning the capitalist global economic system will never be able to achieve …

Dialogic Communication Ethics As A Hopeful Response To Artificial Intelligence, Kristen Haldeman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the past five years, a new technology has dominated modern culture: artificial intelligence. With a multiplicity of ways to respond to this new environment, this dissertation situates a response to artificial intelligence by combining the media ecology and communication ethics perspectives. Media ecology explores historical roots and biases of technology to learn about their influence of humanity. A dialogic communication ethics seeks to find an opening for hope to emerge. Hope, grounded in the works of Jacques Ellul and the Christian tradition, offers a new rhetorical perspective by shifting focus away from technology and to our neighbor.

A Philosophy Of Communication Response To Bullying In Corporate America, Chris A. Phillips Dr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This philosophy of communication response to bullying in corporate America follows the structure of posing research questions, synthesizing relevant literature, and offering advice to practitioners. It invites the reader to have hope in continuing the conversation through a constructive hermeneutic approach to the problem. By building on literature in oppression, silencing, bullying, incivility, and communication ethics, this dissertation reveals how (rhetoric) and why (philosophy) the problem occurs in corporate America today. This dissertation offers a new angle to an old problem, or, a rhetoric and philosophy of bullying. It responds to the following questions:

RQ 1: As a destructive communication …

The Narrative In The Algorithm: Storytelling, World Literature, And The Smartphone, Chad Szalkowski-Ference

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I interrogate the role algorithms, artificial intelligence, and smartphone technology play in contemporary world literature. My analysis begins with the post-truth condition, which speaks to the contemporary era’s embrace of alternative facts, authoritarianism, and conspiratorial thinking. I draw on narrative theory and paradigms of world literature to show how “algorithmic reasoning” has led to a state of paranoid persecution. This reasoning has forged new collectivities across traditional borders. Additionally, I show that these new collectivities and new technologies have produced new narrative points of view: the algorithmic first- and third-person, allowing narratives to retain the intimacy and …

Disrupting The Silence: A Case For Critical Race Theory In Music Education, Preston Wilson Jr.

Visions of Research in Music Education

In response to the inequities within music education, Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers an approach to analyzing how race and racism operate within music education and prompts educators to critically examine existing structures and practices. CRT is a comprehensive framework that offers fundamental insights, perspectives, methods, and pedagogical approaches. Its primary objective is to identify, analyze, and transform the structural and cultural factors that perpetuate the marginalization and subordination of People of Color. CRT’s origins can be traced back to the legal system, where it emerged as a means to challenge and dismantle the pervasive influence of race and racism …

Professionalizing Folklore In Latin America: Four Paradigms Of The Musician And The Coloniality Of Music Education, Matias Recharte

Visions of Research in Music Education

In this article, I discuss the professionalization of folklore and its entanglements with coloniality through an analysis of four paradigms of the musicians I encountered in conversations with students, administrators and instructors at the Escuela Nacional de Folklore Jose Maria Arguedas in Lima, Peru. I contrast two pairs of paradigms, the empírico with the académico and the chivero with the professional in order to show how the “professional folklore musician” is constructed through similarities and differences with these paradigms. For my analysis, I use a coloniality theory framework (Casto-Gomez, 2021; Quijan, 1980, 2000, 2007; Segato 2011, 2022) which considers social …

Teacher Violence In University Music Education: An Exploration In The Mexican Context, Karla María Reynoso Vargas, Basilio Fernández-Morante

Visions of Research in Music Education

This article presents the results of an exploratory phenomenological study aimed at identifying expressions of teacher violence in university music training environments in the Mexican context. We analyzed 53 accounts from students, professionals, and dropouts of music degree programs who studied at universities or conservatories across nine Mexican states and voluntarily shared their testimonies through the Mexican Association of Music Psychology (AMEPSIM). We address sociological assumptions about the dynamics of violence, the socio-educational weight of the conservatory tradition and its potential link to the limited application of contemporary pedagogical principles, as well as the normalization of teacher violence. Various forms …

A Sociological Framework For Spatial Analyses Of Institutional Musicking In Conflict Spaces, Carol Frierson-Campbell

Visions of Research in Music Education

This essay presents a framework that brings spatial sociology together with Small’s (1998, 1999) concept of musicking and Born’s (2011, 2012, 2015) Planes of Music Sociality. It was developed as an analytical scheme for an ongoing case study of musicking via the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM), the national music conservatory of Palestine. Small’s notion of musicking reminds music educators that musicking activities communicate meanings beyond the obvious: Individual and collective ideals about relationships with sound, with other people, and with the spaces they inhabit. Born’s conception of musical socialities as four interacting planes goes beyond Small’s ideas …

Editorial: Colaboraciones A Través De Las Culturas/Collaborations Across Cultures, Cara Faith Bernard, Jennifer Lang

Visions of Research in Music Education

No abstract provided.

C.S.A. Assessment - Tamp Family Health Center Portal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

This C.A.S. assessment evaluates how the Tampa Family Health Centers website influences userattention, cognitive processing, information accessibility, navigation efficiency, and digital user experience.The assessment examines whether the platform supports intentional engagement and informed decision-making while minimizing cognitive overload, distraction, confusion, and unnecessary attentional demands.

TFHC serves as a healthcare access portal providing appointment scheduling, patient resources, providerinformation, healthcare services, MyChart access, payment services, and community health resources.These functions make attention management and information clarity critical to successful user outcomes.

Zeus Network And The Commercialization Of Conflict: A Critical Analysis Of Exploitation, Representation, And Reality Television, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

This study examines Zeus Network as a prominent example of the commercialization of conflict within contemporary digital media. Through reality based programming that frequently emphasizes confrontation, public humiliation, emotional volatility, and interpersonal disputes, the network has cultivated a profitable entertainment model built upon spectacle and controversy. Drawing upon conflict theory, critical race theory, and media sociology, this paper investigates whether Zeus functions as a platform for cultural representation and economic opportunity or as a system that monetizes dysfunction for audience consumption. Particular attention is given to the portrayal of Black women and Black communities, whose experiences often become central to …

A Case For Societal Provenance: Marguerite Harper As Told By The Men She Represented, V. Emily Cranwell Deinert

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This paper argues for making societal provenance the grounding framework for archival descriptive standards to ensure that important voices already present in archives are no longer buried. This study reclaims from archival obscurity the career of literary agent Marguerite E. Harper to illustrate the need for this expansion. Harper proves strikingly absent from some of the archives for the authors she represented. Likely an unwitting omission from archivists that uncritically accepted the narratives of these male authors, Harper’s erasure provides a potent example of the ways that archival descriptive standards may unintentionally further silence historically marginalized voices within archives. The …

Evaluating Gender Equity In The Berenstain Bears Picture Books, Christy Tisnawijaya, Geni Kurniati

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

Picture books serve as a foundational medium in early childhood education, utilizing interrelated visual and verbal elements to foster linguistic, cognitive, and social development. Despite their pedagogical utility, certain literary works inadvertently perpetuate traditional gender roles, constraining children's conceptualizations of identity. This study evaluates gender representation within eleven selected titles of The Berenstain Bears series. Employing a qualitative multimodal content analysis, the study integrates Butler's gender performativity framework (1990), Callow's multimodal narrative approach (2020), and Adam and Harper's evaluative criteria (2021) to examine how domestic, social, and recreational roles are constructed. This study offers novelty by establishing a dual-lens multimodal …

Full Issue - Maya America V8, I1, Maya America Editors

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

Includes Cover Art and Table of Contents

Introduction: Maya Language Advocacy And Mayas’ Production Of Cultural Knowledge, Walter E. Little

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

This introductory essay is part of the special issue Maya America, Volume 8, Issue 1, guest-edited and coordinated by the Mayan Languages Preservation Project. The 10 authors of the various research articles and commentaries represent eight of Guatemala’s 22 Maya languages. What brings these essays into relationship with each other are the pragmatic concerns of strengthening Maya languages, such as providing academic, professional, and social services contexts for using and not merely maintaining these languages but helping them thrive. Each author in this special issue has actively worked in various ways to promote Mayan language and cultural knowledge preservation. As …

Who Owns Land, Who Owns Language? Challenging The Commercialization Of Indigenous Language Data, Matthew Riemland

Maya America: Journal of Essays, Commentary, and Analysis

As Indigenous scholars and activists have pointed out, the commercialization of Indigenous language data resembles the historical and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous land. Using Mayan languages as a case study, this article illustrates the process by which digital advertising platforms – Google and Meta – appropriate and benefit commercially from Indigenous language data, drawing parallels with the dispossession of Indigenous land. It identifies the significant costs of this commercialization to Indigenous communities, including the lack of compensation for the Indigenous language data’s commercial value, the distortion of Indigenous communities’ linguistic and cultural representation online, and the reinforcement of extractive relationships …