Digital Commons Network^™

The History Of The Tuskegee Airmen, Derrick J. Ginyard

Theses and Dissertations

A fine account of a celebrated air unit in World War II, the legacy of an institution created by a man who brought himself “Up from Slavery” to become a leading educator in late-19^th century America. A vivid portrayal of the individual pilots who brought the Allies that much closer to victory over Nazi Germany.

No Peace For Afghanistan: A Case-Study Of The Failure Of Peace-Building Process In Afghanistan From A Transnational Feminist Standpoint, Tahmina Sobat

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In early 2019, the United States officially started its direct negotiations with the Taliban to reach an agreement on a joint framework for a future peace deal in Afghanistan and inter-Afghan negotiations. Although debate continued over the size and duration of the US military presence in Afghanistan and the inclusion of the terrorist group the Taliban in the government of Afghanistan, what fell in and out of the headlines were the topic of women’s presence, their rights, and two decades of advocacy and achievements in these peace-building efforts. While the United Nations Security Council’s resolution 1325 on women, peace, and …

Sustaining Spiritual Change In Wesleyan-Holiness Systems Of Discipleship In Selected Congregations In Illinois, U.S.A., Stephen J. Descalzo

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Idyllic History: The Role And Agency Of Women And Religion In Contemporary Bollywood, Kushma Singh

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore the directorial choices made by Ashutosh Gowariker, in his film Jodhaa Akbar (2008), and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, in his films Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018), in order to evaluate the representation of women and the Muslim religion. Through use of mise en scene, I discuss lighting choices, visual display and use of color and how these elements create and support the stories Bhansali and Gowariker have chosen. I also rely on the recorded history of the time periods as well as the literature to contextualize the films.

An Analysis Of The Methods Of Interpretation Of The Leviticus 11 Dietary Laws In Second Temple And Early Christian Non-Canonical Sources, Ani Ionut Constantin

Master's Theses

Background of the Research

Numerous commentators and theologians have written in recent centuries about clean and unclean animals. These distinctions are also referred to as dietary laws, and they are found in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. For example, Walter Houston wrote in 1993 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 140 about the prohibition, its explanation, and its implications; Vic Lockman extended the study through the New Testament in 1997 in his work The Dietary Laws of the Bible; and Jordan D. Rosenblum in 2016 in his work The Jewish Dietary Laws in the …

Out Of The Gutter, Into The Gram: A Comical Message And A Digital Medium, Tala Majzoub

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

By analyzing three different comics on Instagram by the Lebanese political cartoonist, the Art of Boo, this essay argues that comics generate political meaning through emulating the medium of Instagram on the one hand, and by inviting the audience to become active participants on the other. Although a lot has been written about digital activism and political cartoons in the Arab world, little has been theorized about what makes this form of political artistic expression and dissent powerful on digital platforms. By drawing on Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, this essay demonstrates that the medium of comics operates as a …

Gambling: The Dialogue Of Excess In Lanval And The Franklin’S Tale, Fanrui Shao

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

Marie de France’s Lanval and Chaucer’s The Franklin’s Tale are two medieval stories based on the Breton form of poetry called the lai. Both texts focus on rash actions, in particular thoughtless utterance, committed by virtuous foreigners, and the consequences that ensue. On the surface, the outsiders suffer xenophobia and the disfavor of the local patriarchy. But their true problem is the “excess” that they carry with them. Communities censor the circulation of this excess, i.e., all people, objects and relationships that either come from outside or deviate from local norms. Reading excess in these tales through the lens …

Worthless Secrets: Corruption Of Cosmological Knowledge In The Enochic Tradition, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

The article explores the fallen Watchers’ cosmological secrets and their connection with the cosmological law or the “law of the stars.” It argues that the Watchers’ cosmological expertise is closely connected with their roles in relation to the “law of the stars” as the former participants and guardians of this reified cosmological covenant.

Alexander The Great And Achilles: The Origin Of The Connection Between The Homeric Hero And The King Of Macedon, Katie Thessen

Honors Program Theses

No abstract provided.

Satirical Dissent: The Subversive Messaging Of Ad Reinhardt’S 1946 And 1961 Art Comics How To Look At Modern Art In America, Julie A. Schumacher

Dissertations and Theses

Through a close analysis of Ad Reinhard's 1946 and 1961 art comics "How to Look at Modern Art in America,” examined in the context of their times, this paper will argue that Reinhardt’s idealist view and involvement with abstraction, as he saw it in its “purest” form, was intrinsically formed and shaped by his Marxist anticapitalistic perspectives in response to his concurrent time. When these works are examined through the lens of Reinhard’s socialist politics, a parallel narrative surfaces where “pictures artists” also signifies capitalism and its capacity to harmonize and contaminate.

Flawed Judgment: The Prolonged Failure Of Handschu V. Special Services Division, 1971-2022, Henry A. Burby

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores Handschu v. Special Services Division, an ongoing federal class-action suit brought by New York activists in 1971 to challenge the NYPD's right to use covert tactics to monitor them and undermine their political projects. The Handschu plaintiffs originally hoped that the court would find the NYPD's covert activities unconstitutional and would intervene on behalf of all New Yorkers thus targeted. After the conservative Burger Court challenged the pro-activist decisions of the previous Warren Court, the plaintiffs abandoned their ambitious goals and settled with the defendants. The Handschu defendants easily sidelined this settlement in the wake of the …

Informed By Joy: A Christian Librarian's Reflection On C.S. Lewis, David H. Michels

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In Surprised by Joy C. S. Lewis offers us his account of his conversion to Christianity. Using his experiences of joy as “signposts,” he leads us through his early life up to his conversion at age thirty-one. I reflect on Lewis’s account as a librarian, researcher, and fellow Christian, considering his information world and the people who aided and hindered him on his faith journey. I conclude with some thoughts on his and my own conversion, as both unique yet shared experiences within the Christian tradition.

"Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is …

Preliminary Report On The 2021 Season Of Excavations At As-Khirbat Safra, Paul Gregor, Paul Ray, Talmadge Gerald, Trisha Broy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"To Create A New Image Of Women": The Fight For The Equal Rights Amendment In Birmingham, Alabama, 1972-1982, Christopher J. Bertolini

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis argues that the struggle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Birmingham, Alabama, rarely focused on the amendment’s legal merits, but rather became a debate about the nature and validity of gender roles. Generally, opponents of the ERA set the terms of the debate and connected the seemingly benign concept of legal equality between men and women with controversial issues like the conscription of women into the military, women’s freedom from the workplace and supposed right to the economic support of their husbands, religious interpretations of gender roles, and abortion. The struggle was primarily one between middle-class …

Premarital Counseling And Christianity: A Composition Of Couples Intuition And Understanding As It Relates To Marital Satisfaction, Sheila Delores Salley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Increasing divorce rates in the United States of America have resulted in Premarital Counseling (PMC) gaining grave popularity over the last couple of decades. There has been a proliferation of premarital counseling programs in the United States of America since the 1930s with a thrust toward building and sustaining satisfying marriages. Traditional premarital counseling programs focus on ensuring satisfaction once the couple is married; however, there is a significant gap in researching the impact of incorporating Christian values as a means of therapeutic intervention. This study involved eight Christian, African American, heterosexual couples who received Christian-based PMC (CPMC) and have …

The Integrative Systeomics Framework To Prioritize Genes And/Or Pathways In Skin Imflammation, Bharat Mishra

All ETDs from UAB

The accelerated growth in sequencing technology assisted us to explore the bio-logical systems comprehensively through a top-down approach rather than the conven-tional bottom-up approach. The top-down approach is a part of systems biology that gen-erates massive data that has driven this course of investigation to decipher the system-wide genetic perturbations. To reduce the complexity of humongous datasets, the graph (network)-based techniques facilitate the easy handling, analysis, and interpretation of biological associations. Networks are the graphical representation of nodes (biomole-cules) and edges (associations/interactions). The most common biological networks are correlation-based gene co-expression network (GCN), gene regulatory network (GRN), and protein-protein interaction …

Remembering Christ's Blood Which Was Shed, Ryder Seamons, John Hilton Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Each Sunday, as part of one of the most familiar rituals in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we hear in our sacrament prayers that the broken bread we eat is a symbol of Christ’s body, and the water we drink a symbol of Christ’s “blood . . . , which was shed for [us]” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:79). Most importantly, we are invited to take these emblems “in remembrance” of his body and shed blood, both at that moment and “always.” Integral to the spiritual cleansing we can experience as we take the sacrament is our remembrance …

From Stumbling Blocks To Stepping Stones What America Can Learn From Germany About Reconciliation, Melissa Dalton-Bradford

BYU Studies

On December 7, 1970, while in Poland to sign the Warsaw Treaty, German chancellor Willy Brandt visited the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The towering stone and bronze monument commemorates the bloody confrontation between Polish resistance groups and German military that took place on the eve of Passover in April 1943, when seven hundred Jewish insurgents wielding only pistols and homemade grenades fought against the well-equipped SS, who, in the end, leveled and incinerated the entire ghetto. More than seven thousand Jews died in that uprising, and an additional forty-two thousand were rounded up and deported to concentration camps. …

Saving A Child (Exodus 1-2), Kevin L. Tolley

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Exodus is arguably the most essential book in the Hebrew Bible because it depicts the pivotal events in Israel’s history and the definitive institutions of its religion. These themes have reverberated through all subsequent Jewish and Christian history.[1] Nahum Sarna wrote that the Exodus narrative “profoundly influenced ethical and social consciousness” in the Torah and was the “motivation for protecting and promoting the interests and rights of the stranger and disadvantaged of society.”[2]

“The Wind And The Fire To Be My Chariot”: The Anachronism That Wasn’T, John Gee

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In the Book of Abraham, God tells Abraham in Haran, “I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot” (Abraham 2:7). While this initially might appear to be an anachronism, as the chariot is normally thought to have been introduced later, archaeological finds of chariots at the site of Harran predate Abraham by hundreds of years.

Heathen Husband: The Corrupting Patriarchal Hierarchy In Shakespeare’S Othello And Its Absence In Cinthio’S Gli Hecatommithi, Heavyn Renee Lester

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis places William Shakespeare’s Othello within cultural context to examine the moral corruption that Desdemona and Othello undergo once they fulfill marital roles within a patriarchal hierarchy that reflects the hierarchy religious conduct literature calls on Christians to maintain within marriage. At the same time, this thesis contrasts Shakespeare’s Othello with the Italian story of Disdemona and a Moorish captain within Decade Three of Cinthio’s Gli Hecatommithi. Hecatommithi does not ascribe a corrupting power to patriarchal hierarchy or explore Othello’s downfall in relation to his Christian faith. This thesis determines that the alterations Shakespeare makes to Othello’s source material …

Best Practices In Protestant Aid For Ukrainian Refugees: 2022, Mark R. Elliott

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Excerpt: "Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, dramatically accelerated Moscow’s military campaign against its southwestern neighbor which had begun in 2014. This unprovoked invasion managed to generate an equally dramatic displacement of Ukrainian civilians, some 13.5 million and counting.

"Paradoxically, the humanitarian response has been both phenomenal and inadequate. It has been phenomenal in its prodigious marshalling of resources and in its determination to alleviate enormous human suffering, calling forth impulses of generosity on a massive scale on the part of the UN, the EU, numerous individual European and North American governments, businesses, foundations, relief and development …

"A Blacker List Of Crime Was Never Looked Upon": Mormon Violence, Utah Statehood, And The Memory Of The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Lerene K. Mcfarland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Mansfield, Marines, And Mothers: The Politics Of Resistance To The American Intervention In North China From 1945-1946, James Robert Compton

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

At the conclusion of World War II, American citizens, including millions of deployed servicemen, reasserted the democratic freedoms they sacrificed to win the war. The American intervention in North China during the Chinese Civil War presented a ripe opportunity for civic restoration in late 1945. Controversial and seemingly at odds with the stated goals of the Second World War—namely the “Four Freedoms” and the Atlantic Charter—the US military presence in North China faced formidable domestic political obstacles. This thesis explores the nexus of domestic politics and foreign policy in the post-World War II era. Focusing on 1945-1946, this project steps …

We Need New Heroes: Tracing Heroic Masculinities From Homeric Epic To Contemporary Comic Cinema, Matthew Gallagher

Master's Theses

For as long as stories have been told, written, and performed heroes have been the measures of a culture. A people’s values, their fears, their hopes, their customs have all been preserved in the stories of their heroes, and in recent decades, I would argue, in the stories of their superheroes. Tracing modern depictions of cinematic superheroes back to some of the earliest extant narratives of heroes in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, we see that most of our heroes in the past three millennia have been men. And in the modern explosion of superhero movies’ success and popularity, we see …

Gigi, Helen Wesley Kapp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Francis’s grandpa taught her how to wrestle alligators. By the time Francis was sixteen, she could hold her own, but all it takes is one gator. Just one gator who almost gets the best of you, and suddenly you’ve got a dead animal; somebody’s getting stitches; you’re getting haunted by the ghost of the alligator you just killed; and your mom’s making you move to Charleston to attend a swanky prep school where the kids don’t wrestle gators, but surviving the gossip is even harder.

Nonreligious Explanations Of Boko Haram’S Resilience In Nigeria, Jimmy Imo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Over the past decade, Boko Haram has become one of the world’s deadliest terror organizations. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore nonreligious explanations for the problem of resilience of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Rational choice theory provided the primary framework for the study. Data were collected through in-person and telephone interviews with 14 religious and government subject matter experts. Other sources of data included media publications, documents, audio-visual materials, and the internet. Data were inductively coded and subjected to thematic analysis. Findings showed that instead of religious ideology, Boko Haram’s resilience was due to poor policy …

"The Cloak Of Social Feeling": Alfred Adler's Gemeinschaftsgefuhl In Practice And Memory, Esteban T. Arnold

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of Alfred Adler’s concept of Gemeinschaftsgefühl (community feeling), a simple yet potent idea that started in a Viennese café and expanded far beyond it. Ideas have lives beyond that of their authors, and this thesis argues that Alfred Adler’s idea of Gemeinschaftsgefühl was pressed into the service of various social and political agendas. Adler was privately a socialist, but he never wished to see Gemeinschaftsgefühl become a tool for this or any other movement. With an idealistic worldview, Adler sought to challenge and transform the pervading medical and psychotherapeutic conceptions of …

Imago Dei Interrupted : Christocentric Measures To Reintegrate American Women Into New Communities After Having Survived Commercial Sexual Exploitation, Timothy Peter Robbins

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Sin Of Racism, Ray Almanza

LMU Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the history of racism in relation to the Catholic Church. This history amounts to an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church not only as a neutral party in the historical emergence of white supremacy, but a directly linked cause of racism. First, it describes how racism emerged in its modern manifestation in three major dimensions which include the geopolitical, economic, and social. Then, it centers on two general forms of analysis, a cultural analysis, and a philosophical analysis. Drawing on insights from Liberation Theology, various themes are highlighted as they apply to the discussion of race in …